Wars of the Roses
by Buddhacide
Summary: Three noble clans of the Lillian Kingdom, locked in war. But when Fukuzawa Yuki's modernized Hanadera Republic launches an epic invasion, the soeur knights find their lances outmatched by guns and cannons. Only one girl can reunite Lillian's imperilled houses: Yuki's own sister. A shameless fanwreck of royal proportions, with courtly sisterly love and some serious sibling rivalry.
1. Soeurship Everlasting

**-+- WARS OF THE ROSES -+-**

******A Marimite AU story**

* * *

On the wondrous continent of Lillian, a timeless isle inhabited by mysterious wisps, eldritch demons, frost giants, and friendly dragons, there were three legendary heroines celebrated in the epics and poems of bards, whose feats were woven onto royal tapestries, whose praises were sung in the firelit halls of jarls and chieftains –

Saint Chinensis, Saint Foetida, and Saint Gigantea.

They were the prime Roses, the very first soeurs, lovers among equals, united as peers by their sisterhood. They founded the soeur tradition of sisterly courtship, the transmission of rosaries as tokens of love and devotion. Each soeur, bouton or onee-sama, petite or grande, was sworn to fight for her sister's honour unto death.

No one knew where the Rose saints came from or why, but it was they who raided Lillian's shores, unified the island and became its first rulers. After their deaths, the aristocratic clans they left behind exploded into bloody rivalry for generations. But the prime Roses foretold that a girl from the stars would reunite Lillian's women in the face of the unprecedented threat of terrifying new technologies...

Lillian's old world of magical dragons and faeries is dying, wilting in the face of the coming winter of cannons, muskets, and gunpowder.

The ancient clans ride to their home's defence. I can hear the thunder of wardrums, the distant rumbling of galloping hooves, cries before wind-battered lances. Flutes and pipes whistling. Long, hard nails as tough as diamond; aristocratic, adrenaline-saturated blood as red as the flag of the Chinensis family. Bend your knee before this sword tapping your shoulder, cherished sister...

And...

"_Rise, soeur knight_."

* * *

_- The House of Chinensis - _

Pomp. Pageantry. Power. With the heraldic crest of a red rose, the kingdom of the Chinensis House dominates the icy seas with majestic longships and naval fiefdoms. Leading her glory-hungry vassals is the ambitious bouton to Rosa Chinensis, Baroness Ogasawara Sachiko. Little does this insecure, vulnerable Baroness know she will soon hold the salvation of the clans in her arms... in the form of a shy _imouto_ with a solemn political destiny.

_- The House of Foetida -_

Represented by a yellow rose, the aggressive Foetida House maintains a deeply pious force of lady knights, trained to perfection by the undefeated Duchess Hasekura Rei. With its legions commanded by the Dame Shimazu Yoshino, the family's crusaders are mercilessly loyal to their Yellow Rose, Torii Eriko. Yoshino and Rei's loyalty to each other is even stronger, and they will need all the strength their ties of sisterhood can give as they confront the coming conflict.

_- The House of Gigantea - _

To the frozen north is the vast dominion belonging to the Gigantea House. It is an autocracy ruled by Rosa Gigantea, whose coat of arms is a white rose. An absolute monarch supported by Princess Toudou Shimako, the tyrannical, decadent White Rose is bound by no Constitution or common law. Satou Sei's very gesture _is_ the law, her mere breath the decree for which her impoverished, starving serfs and slaving peasant-women expend themselves in mass graves.

_- The Republic of Hanadera - _

After a great civil war, seven once-squabbling states have united into a democratic, economic and military superpower with an administraton and technology never before witnessed. In the name of liberating the backward monarchy of Lillian, Hanadera's council wants total colonial control over Lillian, one-sided treaties, and the subjugation of its women by the Republic's men. But not everything will go to plan. The Hanaderians' reluctant leader, President Fukuzawa Yuki (voted in by Chancellor and former President Kashiwagi), shares a fate with an unknown girl that will change Lillian forever.

* * *

**Act I**

**Souership Everlasting**

* * *

_The first of our worlds was an endless forest, with magical groves and misty springs. Before this was ice, sleet, and chilling frost. Time was unknown in this abyss - no colour, no traces, no footsteps. No life. The craggy abyss was barren._

_Then the great spirits arrived. They breathed warmth on the primeval ice and pitched tents across the freezing surface of the plains and mountains. The first sparks and music from their campfires soared high up to the stars. When the night sky is clear of fog, you can still see the celestial pattern of their seasonal cycles, the northern lights of the aurora borealis._

_So came the great spirits, the apparitions that, for reasons unknown, blew aside the snow for spring. And the land was given the old, hallowed name of "Lillian". This was the first story, the first fairytale of this green and rolling land. _

_And then onto these grey shores, from across the isles of distant stormy seas, came the dragon-headed longships of the Rose saints._

* * *

Rime battered the bleeding skies and drowned out the screams of the female knights far below. High-pitched screams of frustration and panic cut through the cold winds. Vicious flame continued to batter the circular, iron shields of the aristocratic young ladies, and the supernatural valkyrie cavalry's charges had been beaten back time and again by the brutal power of the old, fire-breathing demon. The armour of bronze and silver was little match for the inferno of orange and ebony.

This hulking giant of fire, with the height of three large men, was a towering mass of hateful black limbs, with a head from which jutted two long, bony horns. It had a guttural roar that shattered glaciers and cracked islands in half. "Pull back! It is shameful, but we have no choice but to rely on our revered saints for survival," cried a blue-eyed, slender valkyrie commander. She raised her spear. "Be not afraid – " she cried, before her steel-helmed face was promptly incinerated by the demon's hellish, fiery gout. The headless body fell off its whinnying horse, and the dead shieldmaiden's already demoralized troops retreated back further, screaming for help.

It was utter bedlam.

Snow battered the exhausted commanders of the lady knights. They had already dismounted their steeds, and having fought together all their lives, they advanced as one. "Saint Chinensis! Saint Gigantea! Rally the girls around us!" shrieked the first of the equals. Saint Foetida thrust up her majestic longsword, signalling to her troops that she was still alive and there was no excuse to retreat yet. Her long hair, as yellow as the sun-dappled chrysanthemums of the ancient lands she sailed from, billowed in the howling northern wind. Her diadem, encrusted with diamonds and gold, gave a rare shimmer amidst the hoarfrost. Her cool, Nordic eyes remained undaunted. "This is the last of the demons. Victory is almost at hand. Do not give ground, but hold steadfast in faith to the Virgin."

The forest huntress called Saint Gigantea smiled wearily, her elfin tresses as white as the snow around her, her eyes as grey as the glum heavens above. This otherworldly, perhaps-not-completely-human female clutched a brown bow made of oak in her leather gloves, and strapped behind her were deadly arrows dipped in snakes' venom. Her armour was much lighter and mobile than that of her peers'. "Easy for you to say, you do-gooder."

"For as long as I remember, we've raided and plundered those who took their unjust riches by ill-gotten gains to give to the poor. Now fate has brought us to these miserable isles, this grim continent. You may laugh, but we will be forever united," said the Yellow saint, smiling. "In life _and_ death."

"I suppose I can't deny the truth of your words. Ready, my love?" cried Gigantea to the final noblewoman, who would come to be worshipped as the spiritual ancestor of all Red Roses.

"You are right. Together, sisters," hissed Saint Chinensis, raising her deadly, spiked mace. It bristled with iron teeth, glistening with blood, just like her matted, fiery crimson mop. Her gore-coloured cape, matching the violent landscape, billowed around her body. Quite obviously a human in contrast to Saint Gigantea, the redhead dug her fur boots further into the ground, blue eyes blinking away the snowflakes among her lashes. "We've claimed this continent for ourselves. Lillian belongs to the Holy Mother, and the founding of our kingdom will not be stopped!"

Saint Foetida clutched her sword with two bleeding hands, and a smirking Saint Gigantea pulled back her bowstring, closing one eye and aiming a poison-tipped arrow at the demon. "Everyone pull back!" barked Saint Chinensis. "Leave that aberration's end to us. Three will overcome one! My dear soeurs, my soulmates in this life and the next -

"_CHARGE_!"

A dozen hateful hands reached down from the towering monster, shooting straight past the scattering knights and making for their leaders. Saint Gigantea's grey eyes glinted as she released her bowstring, and the _whooshing_ arrow shot through two squirming hands, forcing the monster to recoil angrily. A blink, and Saint Gigantea had already drawn another arrow and fired it in rapid succession. "Go!" she shouted. The demon screamed, distracted by the agony, and Saints Chinensis and Foetida quickly took the chance to close the distance. Muscles burning and aching, hearts thundering louder than the smoking battlefield, blinking away their sweat and blood, they sprinted across the snow and gore-caked ground, hopping over the charred or bleeding corpses of their own warriors. They ran towards the frozen lake, on which the horrific giant stood amidst a pile of dead women and horses. It bellowed as they approached, vomiting yellow bile and purple gore. It prepared to breathe fire again, but the saints were ready. As Saint Chinensis swung her mace and bashed it against the monster's knee with all her strength, her yellow counterpart jumped, thrust high with her sword, and ran it through the doubled-over creature's chin, her blade pushing past the jaw and burying itself in the soft, sensitive jelly of its mouth. "I must sever the head," whispered the Yellow saint, as three more poisoned arrows from Saint Gigantea lodged themselves in the monster's chest. It was beginning to topple, and Saint Chinensis roared, breaking its last kneecap. Groaning, the beast could no longer stand, and it fell towards the saints like a toppled tree.

"My darlings," cried Saint Gigantea, "watch out!"

"By the Virgin's tears - " Saint Chinensis and Saint Foetida scrambled aside and dived out of the way as the demon's twitching body smashed into the solid ice of the frozen lake, partially cracking it with a dull _boom_.

"Do it," snarled the red-haired warrior, rushing back up. "Now!"

"I shall," barked Saint Foetida, drunk with holy, righteous bloodlust. She stomped over to the fallen, still groaning beast and bent her knees. Her sword was still lodged inside its mouth. She grabbed her sword's handle, gritting her teeth, and gave a mighty yank upwards. The monster could only let out one last gurgle of protest before there was silence. She roared as violet fluids and hot tissue splattered across her light hair and the two-horned skull flew from the limp shoulders. She began to heave with emotion, and she staggered backwards, leaving Saint Chinensis to pick up the trophy. The latter, almost stunned by the sudden end to the battle, dropped her mace and thrust up her hand that gripped the heavy, gaping head of the demon, high in the chilly winter air.

"The Lady be praised!" she cried, tears pouring down her face while blood splashed from the creature's black eye sockets. "All soeurs to me! My brave jarls, clan queens, and valkyries! Feast your eyes! Our dead are avenged, their sacrifice recompensed! They smile down on us from the blissful afterlife of the Heroines' Hall! This repulsive head rises with the coming sun! The dawn will warm our new, cold kingdoms!" she shrieked incoherently, as her bawling comrades scrambled to her and hugged her jubilantly, almost childishly. And with them, the decimated but victorious ranks of the lady knights also screamed in triumph, their cries dispelling the mists of red and grey that had hung over the battlefield. Swords and lances were raised, spears and axes jangled together, shields beaten in a grateful rhythm of celebration. And a trio of billowing banners rose high above the threefold armies of armoured women and valkyries…

One was of a red rose; another of proud yellow, and the last standard matched them with a pearly white counterpart.

Hundreds of victorious knights and shieldmaidens punched their fists and rattled their shields at the sky, shouting their support in the form of a great chant, their high voices booming in triumphant, earthshaking unison. It was a magnificent chant, a warcry that sung of a battle finally won:

"_CHI-NEN-SIS! FOE-TI-DA! GI-GAN-TE-A_! _CHI-NEN-SIS! FOE-TI-DA! GI-GAN-TE-A_!"

"Sisters," wept Saint Chinensis amidst her ladies' cheering and chanting, pulling a blubbering, sobbing Saint Gigantea and Saint Foetida closer. The exultant warrior planted a warm, grateful kiss on each of their smudged, grimy foreheads. They had won. Their red, blonde, and white locks intertwined and tangled, as if straining for each other. "This victory tastes as sweet as our enemies' blood. Thank you. Don't ever leave me, you two."

"Never," swore Saint Foetida fiercely, clasping Saint Chinensis's arm as if she would collapse without the support.

"Ever," chuckled Saint Gigantea, tears of joy streaming silently down her cheeks.

They had purged the continent of Lillian of the last of the ancient demons. It was now up to the founders of Lillian to reap the rewards of their conquest. It was on this day that they would introduce civilization to this green and white land.

All hail Chinensis, Foetida, and Gigantea: greatest of all sworn sisters.

Ancestors of the boutons.

The prime Roses.

The very first soeurs.

* * *

_Four hundred years later_

The nearly infinite forest canopy sheltered worlds of life underneath the majestic branches and lush leaves. If one was quiet, one could see stunning sights of the thicket groves and ponds where the fairies and unicorns lived. Fresh waterfalls crashed upon lush lakes with deep waters of reflecting sapphire. The bright blue empyrean was as clear as crystal dew.

And upon the rolling green fields beyond the great forest meandered colossal dragons with emerald scales, snorting flame lazily while loafing or rolling about in the grass. Yawning and draping their relaxed wings around their bodies, they were tame, pleasant creatures (as long as one didn't poke their sensitive underbellies with sharp metal swords). Co-existing alongside human settlers, they preferred to indulge their curiosity by watching the cows, horses, and sheep grazing on the pastures, idling contentedly in the countryside.

The amiable dragons frolicked on the meadows and hills beyond small villages, shires and peaceful hamlets. Watching over these villages and shires was a glittering, starlike citadel.

The hill fort's façade glinted with marble and other precious stones and crystals that comprised the superstructure. A breathtakingly tall quartet of spires reached up into the clouds and kissed the wispy celestial cotton. These spires were defensive towers reaching from a glimmering castle, which boasted grand parapets and archways that seemed to meld into the crisscrossing, roofed and walled bridges connecting the manors. Magnificent colors of brown, white, and marble graced the architecture. Water fountains cast against opulent estates, with private gardens and fields stretching across the horizon…

This was the Tower of Lillian, seat of royal power since a time before legal history and memory. According to established Lillian tradition, anything ancient beyond memory or record had to reach back to the era of the Rose saints.

Under its gallery and amongst its twelve columns, a young lady with short, cropped black hair stood at attention inside the Chapel of the Virgin, the main hall of the Tower. Decked in a tight outfit of crimson satin, she bowed her robed body in the barrel-vaulted space, sweeping her blood-red cape behind her shoulders. Meticulously sewn onto that lavish, seemingly gore-stained mantle was a glittering rose with vermillion petals. She kneeled silently, her right arm resting on her right thigh. After this brief ritual, she was ready to announce her presence. She parted her pink lips, pressed with ochre.

"Blessed be Saint Chinensis, blessed be the House of Chinensis, and blessed be I, Rosa Chinensis," she tittered quietly.

Beside her, a chestnut-haired girl went on one knee too. She was also honoured with an opulent cape, but it was far brighter, its colour a jubilant gold with an embroidered yellow rose. Decked in jewels of the sun and and with a gem-encrusted headband forged in the armouries of gruff dwarves, Eriko spoke, her refined voice bouncing off the stone walls. "Blessed be Saint Foetida, blessed be her holy house, and blessed be I, Rosa Foetida."

Behind Youko and Eriko stood one last figure. She had a flawless white grin that seemed to twinkle as she genuflected, although much more informally. Like her peers, she was garbed magnificently, extravagantly, but her cape and winter garments were dominated by a dazzling white, paler than the fluffiest snow. Her hair was shorter than Eriko's but longer than Youko's, and lighter in hue than both. "Rosa Gigantea of the Gigantea House, present and accounted for. It looks like all three of Lillian's Rose clans were summoned today. What could be so important, High Queen Shiori?"

Before their prone forms was an obscenely opulent seat, one made of pure white marble. On that throne sat the Queen of the Realm, the nominal authority of the Lillian Kingdom, the nobility's source of legitimacy. She was so dainty that her generous fur coat and robes, decked with glimmering emerald shards, dwarfed her whole body. It was as if a head, two arms, and a pair of thin legs was sticking out from a mass of luxury satin and silk. The frail, sickly, thin girl sat at ease with her hands modestly on her lap, her long dark hair draping down her fur-covered shoulders. A golden diadem with encrusted rubies, emeralds, and sapphires sat atop her head. Her dark eyes watched Sei carefully, as if wanting to say something to her. But, seemingly thinking the better of it, she continued speaking to the Roses, her vassals.

"I serve the living representatives of the Rose saints as their fount of legitimacy. As such, it was I who crowned you three, two years ago, as the inheritors of the Lillian houses. Centuries ago, the Lillian Kingdom's great founders were the closest of comrades. They loved each other. They drew their weapons for each other's honour. They shared each other's food, mead, and beds. But how the ages have changed. Your armies wage war against each other on a daily basis." Shiori's voice was completely neutral, her expression impartial, but her words were not ones of pleasure. "And I, as High Queen, am all too aware that my ability to restrain your wars is minimal. I am simply a figurehead. Chinensis, Foetida, and Gigantea are no longer united in the Lillian Kingdom, but on the verge of dismembering it."

Youko and Eriko remained silent. Sei smiled. "May I speak, High Queen? Or should I say, my dear former lover?"

"Say it quickly, Sei-sama," said Shiori the Pious curtly, her gentle but steady eyes indulging themselves in a lingering gaze on the White Rose. "And do not invoke our past."

"It wasn't the Gigantea clan that started these wars between the Roses. Read the archives." Sei shrugged. "Wanderlusting elf that she was, Saint Gigantea didn't found her lineage until many years after Chinensis and Foetida. It was Youko's realm that began surrounding our kingdoms with her longships and huskarl raiders. Surely what followed was a natural outcome of domains seeking to defend themselves."

"The fanatical expansionists and legalists of the Foetida family are to blame for closing our trade routes and murdering our merchants," snapped Youko, pointing an elegant finger at Eriko. "This... treacherous young lady... cannot tolerate coexistence with others. You do your ancestor, Saint Foetida, a grave injustice."

"We simply can't overlook the murderous hatred the White Rose has for her own people. It is that simple," sniffed Eriko. "She insults her own office and degrades her own tenure. Her backward autocracy has turned entire races into mindless, soulless slaves. The culture of her kingdom stifles the superior development of ours. I will have her answer to her irresponsibility and dissolution."

"Are you just jealous you don't have your subjects under your thumb like I do?" taunted Sei, winking with a grey eye. Eriko's brow twitched, and her hand slowly inched towards the glittering sword pommel strapped to her waist.

"Ohohoho," mock-cried Sei, cupping a hand to her taunting lips and clasping the handle of her own blade with the other. "I made the Yellow Rose angry!"

"Sei, you insufferable knave!" cried Youko, who had half a mind to turn her own sword on Sei too.

"_Enough_!" shouted Shiori, and the sudden, biting rebuke of the usually quiet and mild girl sent the stunned aristocrats into silence. Her eyes flashed dangerously. "All of you. How we have fallen from the sisterhood of the supreme Rose saints! You know well, as inheritors of the Rose crests that have ruled over Lillian since time immemorial, that the real reasons for your mutual hatred have long been lost. There are no chronicles for our reference, no living witnesses to testify why your people tear at each other's throats. But I do know this. One day, you will regret your endless bickering, the toying of your subjects' lives in your petty great games. I sense that a mighty threat is about to rise against our dominions, and you are sleepwalking into it. I can only hope that the wisdom of our ancestors, the great spirits, and the Rose saints can guide you before your hubris engineers the downfall of everything you hold dear to your hearts."

The three rulers fell silent, not quite brazen enough to challenge Shiori on exactly what threat she was referring to. They sullenly bowed before the High Queen, before backing away from her marble throne. But the tension did not defuse after they left, and indeed, it was the panting Shiori who slumped in her seat once they had departed, sweating and exhausted.

"Maria-sama," she whispered, clutching at the stone. "Give me strength to hold Lillian together before the Roses tear this ancient continent asunder."

* * *

It was a day of battle, of bloody hatred and discord. But so many other days were similar indeed, and Lillian's churches had almost lost track of time thanks to the incessant wars fought between the three houses of royalty. This was just another occasion for that most pleasurable of excuses to bicker over souls and lives and hearts. Today, it was a battle over the province of Albion, waged between the forces of the Chinensis and Gigantea houses.

The society the Chinensis House ruled over was strictly hierarchical. Just below the Red Rose herself was her bouton, who assumed a noble title as she pleased. This day, a thousand-strong force thundered against foes in much greater numbers, although these enemies were far less trained than they. The miserable serfs and indentured slave-women of the Gigantea House numbered in their tens of thousands, easily outstripping the lady knights of Chinensis in numerical advantage. But they were starving, poorly equipped with inferior swords and spears, with little armour to spare, and their poor organization easily crumbled before the determined charge of the Chinensis lances. "Forward!" barked a chieftainess, pointing her sword at the charging serfs. Many of these ragged ruffians didn't even wear shoes, their bare feet bleeding from sores and splinters and caked in mud and grass. "I almost pity these poor souls. But the true criminal is the White Rose, and we will destroy her!"

A hail of arrows from behind the Chinensis frontline showered down onto the terrified slaves, and they crumpled like wilting flowers before a flame. Watching the spectacle of slaughter was a tall and stunningly attractive young lady, her body language alone enough to indicate her superiority. It was a genealogical superiority deliberately bred into her, refined to what might even be called a skill - the art of self-conscious greatness and supremacy, privilege that one didn't need to earn because privilege was one's right. The current bouton had accordingly assumed the title of "Baroness". She personally led the armies of footsoldiers, women-at-arms, and lady knights that fief-owning jarls and chieftains of the Chinensis domain were obliged to provide. She wore no helmet, but her light chaincoat protected her red underclothes and body from being unexpectedly injured or maimed by any stray spears or arrows. Her cold eyes betrayed the somewhat uneasy feeling that this was either some trap, or that Rosa Gigantea was carelessly sacrificing her own pawns just to play.

"Baroness… Rosa Chinensis en bouton," said a vassal chieftain beside her, "our archers have repulsed the peasants of the White Rose. We've barely suffered any casualties." Her voice betrayed her uneasiness. "This is either a rout, or a ruse."

"It is neither. She is insulting us. She's not throwing lives at us, but insults," declared the heir to the Chinensis House coldly. Her satin cape billowed in the cold, grey wind. "Rosa Gigantea knows she won't win with such a half-hearted effort. She has her elite troops, her boyars, but she will not use them. Nor does she enjoy tricking her foes. I can only conclude that her arrogance is stunning, even for an autocrat." Her elegant jaw clenched. "I can imagine her smirk right now, even as her subjects die in her name and we sacrifice our precious warriors for someone like _her_... I shall challenge her in a duel to the death - "

The voice of Mizuno Youko interrupted the Baroness. "Are you delusional, my petite soeur? You would be beyond mad to even fantasize yourself as an equal to Rosa Gigantea." Rosa Chinensis placed a gentle gloved hand on Sachiko's shoulder, her dark eyes glinting. "You are not yet ready for the White Rose. Let me deal with her. Stay here, beloved bouton, and finish off this riffraff. You will have a chance to shine another day, I swear my throne on it."

Sachiko suppressed her anger and protest. She swallowed the injustice of being denied glory by her own mistress. "By your will, my grande soeur."

The Chinensis knights were far more competent in battle than the endless hordes of serfs the Gigantea ruler threw at Sachiko, but Youko knew Sei wasn't ignorant enough to not know this. She smiled knowingly. This was just a distraction. No, not even a distraction.

It was an invitation.

* * *

The battle continued to drag on into the afternoon. Wave after human wave of Gigantea serfs continued to throw themselves at the increasingly tired knights of Chinensis. Wearing armour was extremely taxing, and the women could fight at most for only an hour or so inside their chain mail or plate armour. The battlefield was littered with many more corpses belonging to the Gigantea House, to be sure, but the frozen realms ruled over by the autocrat Sei were also larger - and therefore more populous - than that of the Chinensis and Foetida families. Sei had plenty of fodder to spare, whilst the Chinensis knights were drawn from an elite, selected pool of noblewomen, their daughters, and their sisters. And just like any aristocracy, there were only so few to spare.

"It's time," said Youko suddenly, as she surveyed the changing tides. The Chinensis knights were visibly exhausted. A few were even being dragged down from their horses by brute numbers, thrown to the grass, and set upon by the hungry Gigantea serfs like venison before wild dogs. Sachiko shuddered as she watched her warriors being savaged by the starving peasants, and she looked angrily at her grande soeur. "Hold back these animals," commanded Rosa Chinensis. She slowly drew her sword, a long, one-handed blade with a hilt and pommel encrusted by rubies and the Chinensis coat of arms. "I will handle their mistress myself."

She waved her gauntleted arm. "Archers!" she cried. At her shout, a fresh torrent of deadly arrows pummelled the green field, beyond which was a high hill and the objective of the battle - Castle Albion, a great white fort that overlooked all four directions. It was a perfect beacon and stronghold for any of the Houses' armies. As the serfs and knights continued to shove and batter at each other, dead bodies falling to the wet ground with each heartbeat, Youko broke into a run, leaving behind the grimacing Sachiko behind and charging towards the bloody mound of fighting bodies, beyond which lay the hill and Castle Albion. Some clashing serfs noticed the head of the Chinensis House running at them, and they tried to run at her too. Some reached her quicker than others, but Rosa Chinensis was already on the offensive, slashing aside the peasants that tried to block her way. She shoved her way past a struggling slave-girl and slit her throat with a brutal cut of her blade. She ducked under an unwieldy pitchfork that tried to stab her head and thrust her longsword into its wielder's stomach, drawing a cry of agony from the peasant woman.

"Out of my way, young ladies," she commanded loudly, not losing her cold smile. "And you needn't die here today. Face me, and you will certainly lose your lives." Some of Sei's peasants, with terror in their eyes, were actually wise enough to heed her. They backed away, turning their pitchforks and rusted blades back on the Chinensis knights.

Rosa Chinensis moved on. Pushing past the mounds of bodies littering the bottom of the hill, she finally caught sight of the tyrannical White Rose on top of the mound. The enemy wasn't even standing, but lying down on the grass with a thin reed poking from between her lips. She had her dagger's scabbard placed over her eyes to shield them from the afternoon light. Her chest fell up and down lightly, her breath serene and relaxed amidst the screams and clanging of bloodied iron and steel. Saint Gigantea's current scion was garbed in the clothes of the frozen forests. Her legs, covered in chain armour and a pair of fur boots, were splayed out in a most unladylike manner. Her resting arms were spread complacently on the grass.

She was taking a nap as her impoverished army butchered and was butchered by the enemy.

She was an autocrat, yes, but was she also beautiful, painfully so.

Her eyes were closed, but now they opened as Youko's shadow fell over her. She slowly lifted a lazy hand and removed the scabbard balanced on the ridge of her nose, blinking and squinting up at the Red Rose. "You're quicker than I thought," said Rosa Gigantea plainly, her irises the same hue as those of her ancient ancestor's.

"Your army is pathetic. They are no match for my knights. Of course it would be easy to carve my way through them. But you knew that. Do you appreciate my culling of your serfs?" asked Rosa Chinensis harshly. "As twisted as ever, but at least now your population census will match the High Queen's expectations."

"War keeps me from having to feed too many of my subjects. You can have these weaker ones. They're all hungry, so they're no good anyway. But if you think you and Baroness Sachiko can defeat Princess Shimako and I, I suggest you not expect too much."

"You're going to lose today," whispered Youko. She pointed the tip of her blade at Sei's throat, staring at the reed between her lips. "I could make a move now. I could slice open your neck right here, and our little games would end."

Sei grinned, not budging. She didn't even reach for her dagger or her sword. "Let's see. You're threatening me, fellow Rose. I suppose that's supposed to spur me to hurry me up."

"I have you now. On your feet, Rosa Gigantea," demanded Youko, her dark eyes glinting.

Sei yawned and stretched. "You'll brook no resistance, then. Very well. Then shall we take this to another... arena?"

* * *

Castle Albion was supposed to be the prize of this bloodsoaked skirmish. It was supposed to be the fort that, if held, would provide an important stronghold for future incursions into rival territory. That was what the commanders of the Chinensis and Gigantea armies had told their followers, the women who fought so desperately for them outside the fortress. Victory would assure them the next step to conquering their enemies… and peace at last.

That was a lie.

They had locked themselves privately away in one of the castle's defensive towers, from which they could watch their miserable soldiers kill each other. There was a certain perverse sense of happiness in that. Their sheathed blades were laid to one side. Leaning against the stone-carved wall, next to a narrow window from which the battle could still be seen raging in the distance, Mizuno Youko beckoned with a single finger. "Come here, Rosa Gigantea."

Her mortal enemy grinned, sliding off the armour – and then the fabric – that covered her shoulders.

"Alright."

"The High Queen believes that our ancient houses are in decline. That is why she fears for us so, that we would not be able to defend Lillian were an external threat to challenge our civil war," said Youko, watching Sei sidle towards her. Smiling, she undid the clasp that held her chain mail and satin together, uncovering that tantalizing pale flesh that invited further exploration below. She kept her languid gaze on the White Rose as the latter slowly got on her knees, licking her lips in anticipation. "But Her Majesty is wrong," sighed Rosa Chinensis, clenching her eyes shut and inhaling sharply as Sei's slippery tongue began to gently massage her. Already, this impatient appendage of pleasure had entered her, and the wet contact was indescribable. "She… she doesn't understand… only perpetual war can keep our houses from tearing each other apart. The Rose saints never knew a moment of peace. Neither shall we."

Sei smiled wistfully through her dampened lips. She swallowed, savouring the taste of her eternal, mortal adversary. "You're a cruel woman," she said softly, breathing sensually and playfully into Youko's womanhood, so warmly that Youko gasped uncontrollably, her toes curling within her fur boots. Sei pushed her hands against Youko's thighs and pressed her harder against the wall, closing her eyes when she felt Rosa Chinensis' hands gripping her head and pulling her deeper inside her. Youko gritted her teeth, the sensation of Sei's soft flesh rubbing raw and hard along her most sensitive and tender of corners. She pulled Sei closer, forcing her harder upon her burning regions.

"Ah... oh, Sei! Sei!" cried Youko, as her knights in the distance trampled several shrieking Gigantea peasants to death.

"Mmmm. So," murmured her rival, as her troops hacked at and dismembered a dying Chinensis soeur. "Is your heart racing, about to burst like your womanhood below?"

She sucked harder, and the ruler of the Chinensis House screamed for Sei's lips to bite further down, kiss her fast, press her ever stronger with that dripping tongue. Briefly suffocated, unable to talk coherently, the panting Sei moaned submissively, cooperatively as Youko shoved her face against her again and again, her struggling voice muffled through the Red Rose's pubic hair. It felt good to be used by the Red Rose like this. She began to lick and kiss and suck vigorously, gaining in pace and aggression until Youko's throat gargled out a helpless moan, her grasp convulsing and tearing at Sei's blonde hair. Sei gasped for breath as Youko lifted up her head, staring down into her eyes.

"Hold me," whispered the Red Rose, as their armies continued to brutalize and be brutalized.

"You're in an indulgent mood today." Sei got up, lifting her sore knees from the cold stone floor. Neither bothered to undress completely. It was more exciting like this. They kissed each other on the lips, angrily, aggressively, eagerly, and soon the sensual melody of their pawing and licking at each other drowned out the screaming and clanging of blades in the background. Let their armies slaughter one another in their name. It heightened the tension, sharpened their desire, and intensified their lust. "Hear that?" whispered Sei, cupping Youko's flushed cheek. "The sounds of our unhappy subjects dying for us?"

"Yes," murmured the aroused Youko. "Their cries seem quieter than our sighs, don't they?" This was their time to themselves. Their little fight, their miniature war as their subjects died en masse for them. Her fingers began to play with Sei's exposed nipple, drawing a melodious moan from Rosa Gigantea. Sei adjusted herself so that her half-naked body pressed completely against Youko, and they continued to make love, rocking and bucking against each other, skin against skin, armour against armour, cloth against cloth. Youko wrapped her arms around Sei's neck, kneading the latter's shoulders feverishly as their mutual heat shot up from within them to astound their already frazzled senses. Their aching lips fought and wrestled each other, their wet, dripping tongues duelled ferociously, neither aristocrat willing to back down until one was defeated by the seductive weapon of ecstasy.

"Sei, you fiend!" shrieked Youko through her kisses, her senses momentarily losing themselves in Sei's embrace. She repeated her sworn enemy's name passionately, scratching the back of her head angrily, her nails digging deeper and leaving red, sore marks. Helpless Sei wasn't to be denied her own pleasure either; she had already climaxed, pouring herself out onto Youko's dishevelled robes and bared skin. She trembled, hugging Youko tighter, calling out her name, her quivering voice struck with loneliness. Youko sighed in exhaustion, cradling the White Rose as they panted in each other's arms, waiting for the rapturous thumping inside them to subside, prolonging the moments they could spend together so honestly, away from the bothersome presence of their houses.

Several long minutes passed in priceless, intimate silence.

"Who was victorious today?" moaned Sei, kissing Youko's lips, rubbing for a bit longer against the Red Rose. "Who was first, damn it?"

Youko guided Sei's head down on her chest – she had missed a spot, and Sei kissed her breast obligingly, nibbling her pert nipple in fond conclusion. "I wasn't keeping track, Rosa Gigantea. Truce?"

"Then I suppose we'll have to arrange another great battle for our convenience, then. My victory over you is far from settled." Sei's grey eyes darkened. "Any longer, and they will be suspicious of our absence, Youko. I'll pretend to call a retreat. You'll need to convince Sachiko-chan you've won this one." She lifted herself off Rosa Chinensis, gently releasing her. Youko's knees were still weak and unsteady, so Sei tenderly guided her from the edge of the wall to stand before stepping back. She adjusted her clothes and glanced at the armour she had discarded. "I'm going home."

"Back to the capital of the Gigantea House, then," murmured Youko dreamily.

"Yes. I'll head back to my northern stronghold. Oh… and do tell Sachiko that she has many lifetimes to go before she can survive against me in a duel. Perhaps Princess Shimako will be a better match."

Youko's eyes were distant as she looked outside the window, from which she could see their weary armies still clashing. She pulled up her red satin, covering her damp breasts and sweating shoulders. "Do you think we will ever have peace?"

"Not until we need it. Not until something... or someone... forces us together," smiled Sei. "After all, we are Roses. We are de facto queens, spiritual descendants of the Rose saints. War and hunger for power are our birthright."

Youko smirked, reattaching her golden brooch. "You never fail to impress me with your selfishness." She hesitated, as another, more uncomfortable question found itself on the tip of her tongue. Rosa Gigantea noticed, and she waited. Youko paused, her face vulnerable, before uttering those words.

"Only you deserve me. I am faithful that your honour tells you that only I deserve you."

"If the head of the Chinensis house is willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of her precious jarls and soeurs to kiss me, then I won't force her to confess any more. You don't need to, Youko." The light in Sei's irises was unhurried. "These feelings between you, me, and Eriko were ordained by the Rose saints themselves… so that even as their descendants keep each other in check, they can never break the balance of power. I should kill you right here and now, but I can't imagine my life without you."

Youko closed her eyes. "Good day to you."

Sei chuckled darkly, throwing her fur coat around her. "Goodbye for now, Youko."

And so the Roses departed without so much as a care about winning Castle Albion, heartlessly leaving their doomed armies out on the green hills to continue murdering each other mercilessly for the sake of their brief tryst, by the hundreds of thousands.

But they would not be the first to slaughter each other's people. Much more would come. For in a castle in Foetida territory, a tall, strong woman with short hair slid her hand into her metal gauntlet. She took a deep breath and opened her handsome eyes, which had been shut in meditation. And then she slid her vicious greatsword in her sheath and strode out of her chambers, in preparation for war.

* * *

_Four hundred years ago_

The celebrations and wild revelry in the jarl's halls were complete. Songs had been sung, mead had been downed. The sleeping bodies of deliriously smashed warrior maidens lay strewn across the tables, benches, and wooden walls, and the three Rose saints had retired to their private bedroom. It was very sparse. It had a tall fireplace and a large bed with a single, large fur blanket. In breathtakingly cold climates like that of this continent, it was warmer to sleep together with their bare bodies providing comfort to each other.

"The boring work begins tomorrow," sighed Saint Gigantea, who lay between her two comrades. Saint Chinensis had crawled in before her, her naked form illuminated by the firelight. "And I want no part in it. Mop of flame, you can have the baronesses and duchesses swear fealty to you. You can deal with all the peasants' taxes. I just want to ride and hunt in the forests of this great island."

"Very funny," tutted Saint Chinensis, lifting her red tresses to tickle the elfin woman's cheek. The legs of the three were tangled together. There was an almost childish innocence to their intimacy, even though all three knew how lusty and sensuous their way of life together was. "We all have a part in this great new kingdom. We must sign the law of the soeur system into feudal law. Each of us will rule a portion, and we must elect a High Queen to keep our own power in check. That is what I have promised our new people. And although I know we will never turn our backs on one another, I cannot say the same for our heirs. We must ensure that there is a balance of power between our three provinces, so that even if our houses are one day sundered, none will be able to completely overpower the other.

Saint Foetida stroked Saint Gigantea's snow-white hair, admiring her elfin smile and that mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "An excellent proposal. But even if you do that, we cannot guarantee the unity of the kingdom. I worry, my dears, if our spiritual descendants can maintain it. We seem invincible now, but we cannot foretell what lies in the mists of unbecome time."

Saint Chinensis sighed, closing eyes. "Fear not, sweet love. There is one prophecy that I know. One that was revealed to us all in piecemeal dreams, visions of fragmented sight."

"A girl," whispered Saint Gigantea in realization. "No mere commoner, but a girl born of the passion of the stars."

"Of course," agreed Saint Chinensis. Her blue eyes glittered as Saint Gigantea ran her knuckles along her freckles. "It always begins with a girl. She will appear in the Kingdom's greatest time of need."

"She can save our kingdom?" asked Saint Foetida in surprise.

"No," murmured Saint Chinensis, her eyelids beginning to droop. She held onto Saint Gigantea's arm tightly, but sleep was overpowering her. "But… she… can… reunite it… should our unity ever… be betrayed."

The White saint smiled amusedly. "Look at her. She can't even speak properly, and presumes to prophesize." Her grey eyes softened as Saint Chinensis drifted off. "I want to kiss those freckles more."

Yellow-haired Foetida closed her eyes, snuggling against Saint Gigantea's shoulder. "It's been a long day. We deserve to rest like this. Chinensis is already ahead of us. You sleep too, now. Don't you want to join us in our dreams? Come, tuck in."

"Alright, alright." Saint Gigantea relented, shutting her eyelids too. She was about to let out a quiet sigh when Saint Foetida spoke up again.

"Let us swear ourselves to each other. Reaffirm our undying loyalty to each other's honour."

"I thought you wanted me to sleep."

Saint Foetida's hand guided Saint Gigantea's face to hers, and her blue eyes stared into the other's grey mirrors. She fingered the metal cross between her bare breasts, drawing Saint Gigantea's gaze to it. "I will give you my rosary, my keepsake. Promise me you will pass it down to your heiresses, entrusting them to keep my token of love. What better affirmation of soeurship than for our descendants to own the rosaries we exchanged?"

"Sounds fun. I'll play. Shall I give my cross to redhead when she's awake, then?" chuckled Saint Gigantea.

"Yes," whispered a satisfied Saint Foetida, giggling too. "And she will give me hers. Not that she has any say in the matter, since you consent to my proposal."

"Deal, then." Saint Gigantea indulged herself in a gentle stroke of Saint Foetida's nipple before she let her head relax, and soon the three Rose saints were breathing quietly as one (with an occasional snore from Saint Gigantea), asleep in the warmth of each other's naked bodies and the crackling flames of the fireplace. They had just founded an empire. They needed to recuperate like this.

The first age of this land was that of the great spirits. The coming of the first Roses, and the founding of the great Kingdom of Lillian and its traditions, came to be remembered as the continent's second age.

And in this age, under the reign of High Queen Shiori the Pious, we come to its third and final story – its titanic struggle against the Republic of Hanadera.

* * *

**Next Act: The wrath of Clan Foetida.**

* * *

A/N: This is my new AU. I hope you found this pilot fun, if a bit crazy and probably nonsensical. I've tried to make this AU as multi-faceted and three-dimensional as possible, complete with its own mythology. In a way it was necessary, because this really is a completely made-up universe, not like my previous ones which were grounded in "our" world. The blend is intended to be anachronistic and hodgepodge because the Lillian Kingdom is unrealistically matriarchal anyway. Finally, there was the need to make it a proper Marimite story, rather than an original tale with superficial Marimite names for the characters. I hope you didn't mind my... liberal interpretation… of the Rose families' origins.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story!


	2. Winterfrost Dawn

**- WARS OF THE ROSES -**

* * *

Hello and welcome back to _Wars of the Roses_. Here I've tried to draw a more primal, elemental picture of how the Rose families came to be and how the relationship between two siblings defined a generation of soeurs.

Set on the Norse-Celtic-medieval inspired continent of Lillian, three noble houses once united, now divided, feud and fight amongst each other. The clans of Chinensis, Foetida, and Gigantea were founded by the Rose saints, the women who established the time-honoured soeur tradition. The coming storm will force these now-warring houses to reconcile. Can they stop tearing at each other's throats to face the looming shadow? The approaching war will be decided by one brother and one sister, united as siblings, but fated to battle.

Modernity versus tradition.

Rose against Rose.

Sister versus Brother.

Whatever critiques you might have, I hope you find the story a darkly visceral re-imagining for the canon characters. ^.^

* * *

**- Act II -**

**- Winterfrost Dawn -**

* * *

It was a misty morning in the woodlands that divided the Chinensis family's empire from the dominions of the Foetida House. The snow had melted away briefly, leaving only traces of rime on the forest bed. The vertical, golden-knit banner of the Yellow Rose was held high amongst the branches of the cold trees, still and serene below the several dozen women that moved towards the contested territory in the central glen. The impeccably trained knights in plated armour were all sworn to live, love, and die by the crest of the Yellow Rose. On their own, they were formidable. Together, they were fearless and ferocious.

The horses of the cavalry clopped slowly along the soil and grass, calm but cautious.

The leader of the warriors raised a metal-plated hand. "Wait," she called. She lifted her hands to her jarl's horned helmet and slowly lifted it from her slightly red face. She let out a short puff of breath, visibly enjoying the fresh winter air of the woods. Her short, boyish hair didn't disguise her feminine lips, her shapely almond face. If anything, it accentuated her hard-nosed beauty. "I hear bated breathing. It's almost certainly an ambush."

"As observant as ever, Rosa Foetida en bouton. Your instinct for combat is unsurpassed," said the lieutenant behind her through a visor. She clutched the standard of the clan and her hand was shaking nervously, because she had been personally chosen by the Yellow bouton to hold her flag. Just being in her royal presence was electrifying, an unspeakable privilege. "Should we spread out?"

"No. Keep together. If we divide our forces, the Baroness of Chinensis will certainly pick us off one by one," cautioned Duchess Rei, second-in-command to Rosa Foetida. She had fought the girl called Sachiko many times before, and she had grown used to the shamelessly underhanded and cunning tactics the Red Baroness deployed against her. She had forgotten how many fine young women she had lost to the hand of Rosa Chinensis en bouton, but she had also lost count of how many Chinensis girls she put to the sword in revenge. Yes, indeed - they knew each other well, and almost too well.

This time, once again, her warning came slightly too late as an arrow exploded almost soundlessly from the dark shrubs, piercing into the lieutenant's throat. Gasps arose from the knights behind her. "Ambush!" came the cry from the Foetida knights.

"No!" screamed Rei. "Chisato-chan!"

"Honour... me... forgive..." Eyes cloudy behind her visor, no longer able to speak, the novice squire called Chisato Tanuma gave a dying wheeze through her punctured jugular, her neck spraying red gore, and toppled from her frightened, neighing horse. Rei watched in horror as the fluttering Foetida flag ominously fell with her, its embroidered fabric dirtied by the soil, wet dew, and Chisato's blood.

The women behind Rei cried out to each other in warning, raising their lances. "Brace yourselves!" shouted the enraged Duchess, reining in her nervous steed. "Charge the moment you see them. Dismount and fight them on foot if they try to flee." A dozen more arrows flew from unseen Chinensis bows and struck several Foetida crusaders, and the gurgling women collapsed too. Their riderless horses whinnied in panic, raring and on the verge of fleeing. "Don't panic!" barked the battle-hardened Rei in caution, sensing that her army was losing morale. "Hold our formation. Keep your composure. Avenge our sisters only when the time is right." Her eyes darted from one corner of the forest to another. Now where were they? And then her eagle-like sight spotted them: Chinensis women-at-arms, dressed in green, hiding in the camouflage of the towering bushes to their left flank.

"Brave of you, my valiant enemies," roared the bouton, "but I can see you!" She drew her greatsword from her scabbard, a long, powerful blade that few could even carry, let alone swing. "Take heart, my ladies! It is our time to avenge Chisato's repatriation to the Heroines' Hall."

"_Hail, Saint Foetida! Hail, Rosa Foetida! Hail, bouton Foetida_!" The rallying warcry emboldened Rei, who spurred on her horse, guiding it to the west. The steed obeyed and broke into a spirited charge. The stirrups jangled against the horse's armour. Caught off-guard, the Chinensis archers fired in panic from their hiding spot, but Rei already anticipated their trajectory and ducked under the arrows easily, while another projectile bounced off her horse's armoured helm harmlessly. Encouraged by their commander's sudden counterattack, the shouting Foetida crusaders followed, steeds' hooves thundering on the leaves and pines below. The Chinensis ambush group was panicking, and several of the women burst out from their hiding spot, making a run for it or drawing their swords. Others redrew and fired again, but this time only one Foetida knight fell off her horse. The rest were undaunted. Unhurt. Unwavering. Unimpressed.

Until they glimpsed the young lady emerging from behind the grove behind the thickets.

Dread blade, mounted on a gold guard encrusted with wine-red rubies. A pommel with the terrifying family crest of Chinensis. Black hair like a river of ravens.

And if the Foetida knights were unimpressed with her archers, the cold glare in her eyes indicated that she was even less enthusiastic about the mounted women. She shifted her thin, booted leg, sword inches above the grass. With that one gesture, Mother Time seemed to slow forbiddingly. The air seemed to hum and shimmer around her. Sewn on to the embroidered cloth of the knee-length, fur coat that covered her plate armour was the same coat-of-arms. Her glittering eyes were at once mournful and lonely, in all their bleak majesty.

Only Rei looked happy to see her. "Baroness Sachiko," she snarled, steering her horse in Sachiko's direction.

Rosa Chinensis en bouton said nothing, only waved a pompous hand.

A flurry of arrows rained down without warning from the green canopy above the Foetida knights, steel and wood breaking through the leaves and branches of the winter forest and showering on the shocked women. Yet more of Rei's loyal ladies fell, and they died screaming her name. "Sachiko! More games?" cried Rei, parrying an arrow that almost hit her face. She was no longer amused. "Come and grapple with me, hand-to-hand. Or I will make an example – "

Still on her horse, she lifted her spare spear from her steed's armoured flank, and twisting her waist, hurled it forward.

" – _of one of your own_!" she bellowed.

The blindingly swift, whooshing spear screamed past the oak trees and, before anyone could react, plunged into the breast of a clueless archer with a stupendous _crunch._ Its metal tip and the wet wood emerged, sliding, from inside her back. The poor bleeding girl didn't even know what had punched into her heart and lung, what six-foot weapon was lodged in her torso, before her eyes glazed over in eternal rest. Releasing her bow, she slumped and departed for the Heroines' Hall, her body sliding limply around the lance and crashing clumsily onto the ground.

Sachiko stared at Rei's challenge, and her tree-borne archers suddenly looked a bit paler. Rei's sharp, handsome eyes glinted.

"CLANSWOMEN!" she roared suddenly, and her entourage bellowed out a high-pitched reply.

"FALL AND PERISH!"

The surviving horsewomen now lifted their own spears, following their Duchess's example, and threw them up at the forest canopy. Sachiko whipped around, her eyes widening in outrage and shock as a shower of dozens of corpses – _her_ corpses – plummeted from their branches, groaning, run through by javelins. The Foetida knights shouted out in victory as the shower of sloshing, raining bodies hit the ground and continued their charge, horses galloping for the struggling Chinensis warriors and leaving Rei to enjoy her tussle with the Baroness. Several knights dismounted, bloodlust spilling forth from their visors, as they swung wildly at the Chinensis women-at-arms. Sword met sword, and the overture was officially over. Pandemonium now ruled the forest as Chinensis blades struggled to cut past the plate armour of the crusaders. The melee had begun, and the Foetida clan had finally regained the advantage as their superior halberds and polearms hacked aside the now useless bows and arrows of the Chinensis women. Individuals were soon lost in collective chaos and delirium.

Meanwhile, Baroness and Duchess circled each other in a relatively spacious lot, surrounded by the towering, ancient trees that had grown here even in the age of the Rose saints. "That was an impressive idea," said Rei, her horse clopping at a distance. She slowly dismounted, patting her steed, and it trotted reluctantly away. "Luring us here was better than an open challenge to battle, but this forest is too large for either of our houses to control. Throwing lives and weapons at this region is simply a waste. Rosa Chinensis herself accepted that. Why can't you?"

"I do not believe I was wrong to try. You were always the superior strategist," said Sachiko, her eyes flashing icily in the cool morning mist. "Cool and collected, until Yoshino-chan took you by the leash, that is."

"And you were always the more arrogant one," growled Rei, raising her greatsword in a high guard above her head. It was the classic swordfighting stance invented by Saint Foetida herself, an extremely difficult technique mastered only by the very best. It was a physically taxing stance that left the wielder wide open to almost any attack. But one downward stroke was all that was needed to slay the enemy. "You never learn and return time and again to try and beat me. But can you outwit me at what I do best: swordfighting? Your body is fragile, much weaker than mine. I should know. I've kneaded it. Rubbed it. Tended to its soreness and aches." Rei's eyes shone. "We've touched each other as equals."

"Silence. Have I made myself clear?" Sachiko's position was far more cautious. She pointed her glittering, one-handed sword at Rei, at an angle where she could thrust at Rei's throat or chest if she stepped any closer. Defend by attacking faster…

Rei smiled, unafraid. She burst forward, swinging down her sword as she did so. The incredible speed and momentum forced Sachiko back, her arm shaking from the force of Rei's larger sword.

"How many blows can you take from me before your knees give way?"

Reeling, Sachiko narrowly dodged another swing from the swordmistress, gritting her teeth as her night-black tresses barely escaped the wind-cutting swipe of the double-edged blade. But to her shock, Rei was no longer moving with her sword – she had dropped it. There it was, lying on a heap of dead leaves and kicked up soil! What was the Duchess thinking? But Rei was suddenly moving much faster now. Caught completely off-guard by her newfound speed, Sachiko was unable to back away quickly enough. Rei's face was almost crushing against hers by the time Sachiko's arm suddenly sensed a sharp pain from the twisting lock that Rei forced her into. Rei shoved her towards a tree, and the Baroness cried out in frustration as she felt her body wrenched around. She felt her torso slamming against the tree, her wrists unable to break away from Rei's hands. She was pinned, her face lightly brushing the brown bark. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears while she calmly waited for an opportunity to break free. For now, she would have to put up with whatever her adversary threw at her. But what this nemesis said next was far from expected.

"Sachiko." Rei's eyes burned, her lips inches away from Sachiko's neck. The Baroness had half a mind to turn around, to look at Rei, but she could already feel the unspeakably intense gaze and did not want to meet it. "Do you hate me?"

"What in the Rose saints' name are you talking about? I will not debase myself to answer you," snapped Sachiko, annoyed that although Rei's grip was firm, even in the midst of adrenaline-pumped battle, it was still gentle. Yes, she was for the moment immobilized, but Rei did not make it uncomfortable or painful for her.

"Be honest!" cried Rei, her voice shaking. She stared into Sachiko's cold eyes, her own shining. "Be honest. Do you hate me, the only woman who has been able to match you in ambition? The only one who has ever been able to understand your uncertainty and self-doubt?"

Sachiko growled in frustration. "You are failing your knights."

"My knights will die for me," said Rei quietly. "I'm confident they won't begrudge me a conversation with you."

Sachiko closed her eyes in defeat. "You know, don't you?" pressed Rei, whispering carefully, tenderly, into Sachiko's ear. A gentle push, and it would have been a quiet kiss. "The prime Roses of ancient days passed down their rosaries to us, in an unbroken spiritual lineage… but those rosaries were themselves exchanged between the three saints. The legends say that Foetida gave Gigantea her cross. Gigantea gave hers to Chinensis, and then Chinensis imparted her rosary to Foetida. We live and die for rosaries that were once not of our own clans'."

"Get to the point. What are you trying to say?" snarled Sachiko.

"This centuries-long conflict is completely meaningless, an accident. We are violating the trust and legacy of the prime Roses. Sachiko… there is no one who admires you more than I do. I want to be your equal, perhaps even a friendly rival… but not your enemy. And I know you would hesitate in cutting me down too."

"It's too late for that," said Sachiko, her own regret seeping through her voice. She no longer struggled against Rei's hands. "It was too late the moment our grande soeurs chose us as their heirs. It has been this way for so long. You know this better than anyone. _I_ know it better than anyone," she said unhappily. For some reason, she didn't feel like resisting anymore. "Either you release me and we continue our little duel, or you slay me here. But we cannot reconcile here. Perhaps nowhere."

"I know. I know that too well. Yet there might be a way…" Rei hesitated, but forced herself to muster the words about to pass her lips. She pressed her mouth against Sachiko's reddening earlobe, so intimately and secretively that there was no way anyone could hear her amidst the battle.

"_My petite soeur is plotting a rebellion against Rosa Foetida_."

Nothing could have prepared Sachiko for that prospect. "Impossible. Insurrection? A coup?" she hissed in disbelief, completely incredulous. "What is Dame Yoshino thinking? More scandalously, how could you let her...?"

Rei's shoulders shook. "I haven't been able to tell onee-sama, but I can't betray her, either. Yoshino is so important to me, and I will protect her with my life. But if her ambition against my grande soeur goes as far as this... the balance of power between our clans and our ties with our superiors will surely..." She stared piercingly into Sachiko's flabbergasted eyes. "Were we to form an alliance, you and I, Sachiko... it would be much easier to check the inevitable wrath of the Roses."

"Madness. Complete and utter insanity. I have never heard of a more unhinged, preposterous proposal from Yoshino-chan." Sachiko shook her head. "I cannot betray onee-sama over your petty family feud. I will not do so simply to protect Yoshino-chan. Why should I not let your house tear itself apart?"

Before Rei could elaborate, a Yellow knight staggered into the clearing, blood pouring out of her armour. She gritted her teeth. "Rosa Foetida en bouton! Urgent news!" she wheezed, on the verge of collapsing.

"What?" snapped Rei, releasing Sachiko and turning around. Sachiko staggered away from the tree, recovering her balance and rubbing her sore shoulder joint. She rubbed away some loose bark on her cheek. But Rei's desperate, torn plea had poured cold water on the energy she needed to point her sword at the Duchess. She just wasn't interested anymore. She glanced guiltily at Rei, who was looking slightly pitiful and more fearful by the second. "What is so accursedly urgent?"

"Duchess!" cried the warrior. "Dame Yoshino has been ambushed by Princess Shimako's crack boyars. Our contingent wasn't ready. The scouts report that she's been injured, but the clanswomen have taken her off the battlefield. With your permission, we will call a retreat."

"Yoshino?" whispered Rei, and it was as if she was an entirely different person upon hearing of the sorry news. Her voice faltered, her mouth trembled. "How far will it take to get there? How far are we stretched?" Her eyes suddenly widened. "Behind you!"

The Foetida knight tried to answer, but the curved blade of a Northern axe suddenly buried itself in the back of her skull and emerged past her ruptured forehead and nose. Blood and brain matter gushed from her nostrils and gaping mouth. "_Geeeeeeeeuuuugh_." She choked, unable to speak, her face split in half, and never heard Rei's scream. The slain woman folded and fell unceremoniously to the ground, revealing the murderer to the outraged Rei and shocked Sachiko.

Her eyes were grey, silver like her grande soeur's, as cold steel as all her predecessors'. Her gossamer hair was of a muted bright hue, darkened ever so slightly by the unhappy climate of the uppermost North. Sapphires and diamonds were lined along the small diadem wrapped around her crown and forehead. A soft fur coat draped around her small shoulders and evening-blue leggings covered her modestly, with the only exposed portion being her neck and the shimmering rosary between her breasts. Her bearskin boots almost made her look quite adorable, were it not for the Rus' handaxes decorated with steel sculpts of wolves' heads in each of her gloved fists.

"Princess Shimako!" breathed Rei. She backed off, her greaves sliding along the grass, and she smoothly scooped up her dropped greatsword. "You ordered the ambush on Yoshino?"

"Rosa Gigantea's favoured. The grand khagan of the Gigantea family's rotting tsardom, a duchy built on the fractured backs of shoeless slaves," snarled Sachiko. "Those wretched serfs that live and breed despairingly to provide you with more chaff to throw at us." Perhaps that disconnect between such pure beauty and her true fearsomeness made the bouton of Sei all the more frightening. Would this insufferable nightmare ever end? Sachiko's ambush had degenerated into a disaster. And she should have known that Sei would have the strategic savvy to disrupt her plans _and_ the Foetida clan's counterattack.

"My boyars have hunted down Yoshino-san," said the White Princess, watching Sachiko's billowing cape and Rei's glimmering armour. "So I believed it necessary to come here. At the ends of the great forest, we meet again. From whence harmony came discord, hateful, torn souls must come together once more." Rei stared at Shimako in silence, before glancing at Sachiko. Her proposal would have to wait. "We three boutons declare war on each other, in the name of our grande soeurs," said Shimako calmly and expressionlessly.

"You truly believe you can defeat your seniors," sniffed Sachiko, putting aside her thoughts about a power struggle within the Foetida clan. Surely their tripartite civil war was complicated enough. "You are a strong if artless girl, Shimako-chan. Perhaps that is why I once tried to make you mine."

A moment of silence reigned before the three heirs to the Rose houses sprinted at each other, weapons raised to kill. One mighty _clang_, and the Red Baroness, Yellow Duchess, and White Princess were glaring at each other, their weapons pressing hungrily against the others'. A threefold cry of exertion, and they gracefully disengaged, spinning away and recovering themselves. They glanced up angrily, and once more they met each other's attacks with an unmatched, beautiful ferocity. Shimako blocked a swing from Sachiko's sword and deflected it to Rei's blade, entangling their weapons together with the curved edge of her axe. As her two seniors shouted in rage, the shortest of the three kicked Sachiko away with a forceful thrust of her boot, blocking Rei's swing with the twin axe in her free hand. Rei twisted back, slipping past Sachiko's lunging stab and having her crash clumsily into Shimako. The Baroness ducked under Shimako's swipe and rolled aside, letting Rei's sword and Shimako's axe to collide jarringly.

Shimako's eyes flashed as she quickly jammed Rei's larger, slower weapon between her more mobile ones, and Rei's eyes widened as she felt a knee thrusting into her stomach, visibly crushing the steel protecting her. The force of the White Princess's blow was so powerful that the Yellow Duchess could feel the winding pain through her crumpled plate armour. She gasped, clutching her midsection as Shimako struck her in the exposed neck with the metal hilt of her axe. Without so much as looking back at the falling woman, Shimako turned her attention to the Baroness, throwing all her power behind her ferocious weapons. Sachiko parried Shimako's first blow and tried to sweep the shorter girl with a swipe of her leg. But Shimako was impossibly nimble, and the wolf butt of her free axe dug deeply into Sachiko's abdomen, forcing her to shuffle back, doubled over and winded. The Baroness almost stumbled on a gnarled branch from the sharp pain, her calm, flawless pupils momentarily bulging and dilating in undignified disbelief.

Struggling up, Rei coughed through her ruined trachea, gasping as blood and bile from her throat spattered the grass.

Breathing hard and sweating profusely, Sachiko struggled to block Shimako's onslaught; she staggered and doddered in humiliating retreat as Shimako pressed her advantage, smashing her blades again and again against Sachiko's trembling sword. As with Rei, she finally caught the Red bouton's sword between her twin heads and, with a ruthless if supple twirl of her arms, wrenched it out of her hand. Fingers sore, Sachiko gasped, for the first time in fear rather than indignation, as she watched her sword fly spinning away. She glanced back in dread as Shimako raised her arms to sever her senior's sinews and limbs -

But instead, the descending axeheads met Rei's greatsword, whose owner had rolled in front of Sachiko and blocked Shimako's otherwise lethal blow. Shimako tottered back from the impact in surprise, and Sachiko was even more mortified. Rei's eyes were once more burning with emotion, her expression unreadable. Sachiko blinked in uncertainty. What in the great spirits' name was she thinking?

"Not yet, Shimako-chan," gritted Rei, blood trickling past her clenched teeth, her sword's blade chipped badly by Shimako's power. "You forget yourself."

Shimako's surprised expression settled into one of calm acceptance. What exactly did she suddenly understand? "Baroness. Duchess. You are both too strong for me. I cannot overcome you here, especially if you intend to work against me as one." She slowly backed away. "My boyars will surely be having a difficult time against Yoshino-san, and I have no time to allow her to break away from my contingent. Rosa Gigantea sends her most respectful regards," she declared, as two blonde women in long, fluffy brown coats and tall furry hats emerged from the now quiet trees. Their war ponies neighed, and one of them extended a hand. Shimako slipped away her axes along the belt within her coat and caught the boyar's arm, swinging up on the pony.

"Farewell and good day to you," she saluted, as the boyars beat a retreat, disappearing as quickly as they had come to retrieve Sei's heir.

Staggering up, the bloodied Rei began to laugh loudly, sheathing her sword. "She means we're not good enough for her. What do you think, Sachiko?" She glared at the panting Baroness. "I'll throw you this bone of a battle. I'm going after Shimako-chan. I can't let her kill Yoshino," snarled the Yellow bouton, her voice rising in hysterics. "Were it not for the treachery of the Gigantea family..." She whistled, and her horse galloped to her, whinnying fearfully. She hoisted herself up on its back. "Remember what I've told you. Lillian is groaning under the weight of its own institutions and traditions. Revolution is inevitable, and I don't know if I can stop it. Sooner or later, we will need each other's help."

"Go and save your precious lady," laughed Sachiko, almost forgetting that for a few precious moments, they had been talking like intimate friends. "Perhaps later, we can continue your little treacherous gossip."

Rei glared at Sachiko. "And I trusted you. Now I am lost, adrift, unable to serve onee-sama or Yoshino-chan."

Sachiko shrugged as Rei's horse galloped away past the trees before Sachiko, and before long the latter could hear the voices of her followers. "The Foetida women have retreated!" Sachiko glanced around, and from the few women rushing to her side, only a handful of women-at-arms remained alive. The Foetida counterattack had done its good work, and Sachiko loathed to think her entire battalion would have been destroyed were it not for Shimako's intervention. "Baroness! Rosa Chinensis en bouton! Are you alright?"

"Shut up!" she snapped angrily. She sniffed, staggering back up and limping to her sword, which lay silently on the ground, as if equally humiliated. Her burning, shaking legs struggled to move after her near-annihilation at her onetime prospective soeur's hands. "I am not injured. Tend to the survivors." She took up her blade and slid it into her sheath, sighing. Indeed, this time, both Duchess and Baroness had been trounced by the younger Princess. No wonder the totalitarian White Rose never cared for recruiting another soeur.

Was Rei right? Had she been too arrogant? And what could Yoshino possibly hope to achieve with her little insurrection, if Rei was telling the truth? What winds of change were blowing across the isle of the Lillian Kingdom?

* * *

_Chinensis Palace_

Naked and soaking wet, the crouching Baroness poured the fresh spring water from the unicorn glen from her wooden jug over her head once more, relishing the refreshing cold that jilted her deadened senses back to life. She blinked through the waterdrops, savouring its cool contrast with the warmth of the afternoon sun lilting past her wooden window. There was a particular bitterness about being bested by Rei. It felt worse than Shimako's victory. She hated to admit it, but there was so much to admire about that girl.

_Oh, my dear Rei_...

She pursed her lips. She could never say it out loud, but Hasekura Rei was honourable, so very brave, and had never lost a single battle. Today must have been devastating for her – not only had Sachiko managed to fight her to a stalemate with Shimako's unintentional help, but Yoshino had apparently been ambushed and injured by Gigantea boyars. In a sense, Shimako had saved her in a most humiliating and cruel fashion.

Yes, there was Princess Shimako, Rosa Gigantea's chosen, the White clan's only heir. Sei and Shimako made perhaps the continent's most formidable duo, because one could say they were almost of one mind. _Unlike my occasional squabbles with onee-sama. I wonder how she will chide me this time for my failure_... pondered Sachiko, cool water dripping from her wet lips and the tip of her nose. She bent her waist and set down her jug. Her bare feet glistened on the soaked wooden floor as she wondered how she should phrase her report to the Red Rose.

"Your Ladyship," came a quiet maid's voice.

"I don't wish to be disturbed," replied Sachiko, instinctively covering her body with a hand even though her servant did not presume to come in. "Come back later."

"Rosa Chinensis would like you to inspect the newest shipment of slave girls in the Great Hall," was the reply. "Taken from the shores Rosa Chinensis raided today. Some were wanderers. There are about thirty or forty this time."

Sachiko paused at the announcement.

"Those that please my eyes and ears can please my body later," she said quietly. "The rest can be divided for use among our brave knights. I'll come and see them soon."

* * *

Having refreshed herself and returned to her courtly outfit, Sachiko carefully sat down on her throne of ivory white, vermillion cape enveloping her tight red garments. She didn't wear her crown, however. After the recent dispiriting events, she was not in the mood for saturating her day with self-congratulatory ceremony. She clicked her fingers, her free hand resting on her lap. "Bring them in," she commanded, glancing down at the gaoler kneeling before her.

The keeper of the dungeons was appropriately garbed for the occasion, her thin body and skin bound painfully in tight, sinister black stripped from the pelts of forest bears. She rose from her knees and cracked her whiplash, which was studded with shards of stags' antlers. "Get in here, filth," she snarled, and the following sound coming from the side door of the hall was one of shuffles, sniffles, and terrified hiccups. The sight was sorry indeed, if an expected one. The first ten, barefoot women were marched before the Baroness's throne, their shivering bodies covered in the most undignified of moss-coloured rags. They trembled before the Chinensis heir, and two of them were sobbing openly, sniffling and struggling to hold back mucus from their noses and salty tears from their eyes. Smudged with soot and blood, those who could keep their composure simply stared straight ahead, refusing to let the gaze of Sachiko break them. These were peasant women, eking out the most minimal and modest of lives, until either the knights of Chinensis forced them to pay their taxes with their own bodies... or demanded that they hand over their daughters to be raised as loyal knights under the Red Rose.

Others were women who lived under the Foetida and Gigantea clans, who had seen their villages and cattle raided and plundered. Now they were free from their onetime rulers, although their new situation was hardly better.

"To the dungeons," said Sachiko quietly and menacingly, after several long moments of deliberation.

Several of the prisoners gasped and began to cry harder. Others remained steely-eyed, their lips trembling and chins wobbling courageously. The gaoler bashed her whip against the stone ground again, and the next line of women shuffled in. Sachiko liked these ones more. They looked younger, and several of them were quite beautiful. They all looked quite afraid, still. No - there was one, the fourth girl in rags among the ten, and she looked shaken and certainly unsure of herself. But her rich brown eyes did not betray any real fear, nor was it suppressed. There was no fear in this girl's expression, at least none of the fear that Sachiko knew. Her hair was of a deep brown, undone, its tresses were also long, although far less so than Sachiko's. The brunette lowered her head, her wrists visibly raw and sore from the chains. It could have been worse. The crying girls next to her were clenching their teeth at the metal eating into their bleeding flesh.

"Do you have a name, peasant?" asked the Baroness.

The girl's voice was hoarse, but clear and audible. "Yumi. Of Fukuzawa."

The gaoler raised an eyebrow behind her sadomasochistic, black fur mask. "Never heard of them. An insignificant clan, most likely."

Sachiko kept her eyes on the silent girl. "And are you afraid of me, young lady?" she asked, wondering what the answer could be.

Yumi's long hair was matted and dirtied, bangs pressed against her forehead, but something in her eyes told Sachiko, somehow, that she was not entirely forced against her will to come here. What could that mean? "I am indeed afraid," said Yumi, clearing her throat, "but not _of_ you." She paused, and then spoke once more. "I am afraid _for_ you, Your Ladyship. You are in grave danger."

"How dare you!" snarled the gaoler, raising her whip threateningly. "You babble rubbish!"

"Wait!" cried Sachiko, her interested piqued in a way she had forgotten for quite some time. "Of what?"

Yumi's eyes suddenly glinted, and Sachiko felt her usual confidence off-balance. "A snowstorm approaches."

"Don't play poetry with my life," demanded Sachiko. "Is there someone who wants to assassinate me? Are the other two Roses planning an invasion? Speak, or I will punish you!"

"I will reveal to you everything - when the stars are right - if you take me to your bedchamber," overrode Yumi loudly, aggressively, and the blushing prisoner lowered her head, as if regretting that she had to resort to such drastic words.

The gaoler shook her head in wonder. "This little girl is unbelievable. Shall I hang, draw, and quarter her, Rosa Chinensis en bouton?"

"Unbind her," ordered the Baroness, after a few moments' hesitation. Yumi's steadfast gaze remained on her, and she was becoming unnerved. She would not let this commoner off. "I will teach her a lesson myself."

"What about the others, Your Ladyship?" asked the surprised gaoler.

"Throw them into the dungeons, too. Break them as you please. But bring this one up to my bedchambers."

"Of... of course."

The girl called Yumi bowed her head, but Sachiko still could not detect fear in her lowered eyes. Nervousness, yes, timidity, certainly. But those were not to be confused with fear. And that fact disturbed Sachiko. _Why_? wondered the Baroness.

She shrugged to herself, rising from her throne.

She was going to her room, and she was about to find out.

* * *

Lying on her sumptuous bed, her cape flung aside, Sachiko observed the freshly-bathed girl in silence. Hands clasped in front of her tightly, Yumi looked visibly tired. She glanced around, looking at the skinned animals that decorated the bedroom, the harp in the corner, the sumptuous silk and satin that covered every pillow and sheet, and finally at the Baroness waiting on the bed. Yumi almost looked like as if her exhausted eyes would close - until Sachiko finally spoke.

"Pull those rags away from yourself. They don't deserve to cling to you, now that I have privileged you with a warm bath in my private springs."

Yumi blushed, not meeting Sachiko's gaze. Her arms twitched, but they refused to glide across her rags, to pull them away.

"You will take off your clothes for me. You will move, breathe, exist for my gaze," insisted Sachiko quietly. "There is nothing else you _can_ do, slave girl. Are you suddenly afraid now? Now, when you displayed such blatant impertinence and daring before?"

"Yes, Madam," mumbled the naked girl mildly.

"And you will reveal to me, as you promised, why I am in... grave danger." The Baroness titled her head, smiling triumphantly. At last! She was back in control of the conversation.

"I must tell you something first, Sachiko-sama," said Yumi, as she slowly pulled at her fragile clothes. She discarded them effortlessly, and the tatters fell around her bare legs like feathers. She watched Sachiko massage her gaze over her bare skin, taking in the magnificent sight of the fragile girl's thighs, hips, breasts, shoulders, collarbone. "Forgive my rudeness, but..."

"What?" said Sachiko, once more annoyed at how brave the other still seemed. To some extent she felt envious. Here was this victim of plunder, naked, powerless, stripped of her rags and standing before a lounging noblewoman. Yet her bearing seemed so honest that it outshone Sachiko's own self-conceit, her bred majesty.

"I'm not a slave. I don't know where my parents are. But I can assure Sachiko-sama that I was not born a slave."

"Oh?" said Sachiko. "Are you saying you belonged to a landowning family that was raided by my vassals? That you deserve some recompense from me?" Sachiko sniffed. "Gold is not the problem. But you haven't told me why I am in peril, which was why I took an interest in you to begin with."

"No," said Yumi fearlessly, without the slightest trace of hesitation. "And I beg your forgiveness that I cannot disclose much of significance. I'm not sure if I know everything myself. But I do know why you chose to bring me up to your bedchamber, and I know what must pass between us. May I say it?"

Sachiko's brow rose. "If you must," she replied, trying to suppress her curiosity and failing. Once more, she was losing control. And this time, she wasn't sure if she wanted to fight it, to struggle against this magnetism from what she thought was just an intriguing slave girl.

Yumi blushed, well aware and mindful that she was the subject of the Baroness's gaze, the object of her undivided attention. She spoke again. "I know about the legend of the first Roses. They won glory because they loved each other with an unmatched passion." Yumi skirted her gaze to her right. To Sachiko's surprise, her voice began to rise in volume and intensity.

"Is there anything more inspiring, more dreadful, than a woman inflamed, thunderstruck, who has received the affection of her soeur? Petite or grande, it matters not. This unspoken, discreet courtship…" Yumi finally raised her head, her brave eyes meeting Sachiko's uncertain irises. "This seduction cannot be fulfilled unless it is a conspiracy signed between the two of us. We must both be complicit."

"You know an awful deal about the soeur traditions of courtship for your station," agreed Sachiko, watching Yumi's arm covering her bosom, like her very own little morning star. Shy and shining. "But you are right, I cannot deny that. There are few sights more glorious than the beaming, resolute countenance of a woman after she has been touched, her heart and loins set alight, by her chosen beloved."

This was strange, thought the Baroness to herself. Yes, Yumi looked most fragile, exposed as she was. But she was also assertive in her own way, driven, full of her own desires, hopes, and fears. And from the glimmer in her eyes, these hopes and desires seemed to bury themselves into Sachiko's heart, refusing to be denied by the usual casual dismissal on part of the Red bouton.

She never, ever had this stirring of emotion with Shimako.

"It is as if you can see straight through my soul. So you understand what this is all about, don't you? This unspoken courtship. This conspiracy of seduction between us."

Yumi nodded, smiling for the first time. And it was a beautiful smile.

"Why don't you see for yourself," she whispered. "You _are_ the noble of this house. So I beg of you. Use me. Make me your squire. Nay..." The prisoner - no, she could no longer be called a prisoner - gestured tantalisingly at her small torso and waist. "Make me your soeur."

Silence.

"I don't know what to say to that proposition. No one has ever offered themselves to be my petite soeur before. But I am gratified I summoned you to my bedchamber, Yumi," confessed Sachiko quietly, surrendering for the moment. It just felt easier. This girl had a power, a pull she had never been able to attain herself. Of course she would feel weak before it. "You may step forward. You no longer need to move according to my command."

"I am honoured my bare feet stepped into the most intimate echelon of your presence," replied the younger woman. She closed her eyes, as if it was all too much. "Perhaps this was the destiny the great spirits intended for me. Perhaps I will discover that I loved you before I met you."

"Who knows? Perhaps I loved you before you were born," whispered Sachiko, her heart pounding faster, much to her consternation. "Wait. I didn't..." Her eyes reflected her momentary fear and shame. She wasn't used to blurting out so much. And more disconcertingly, what had she just uttered? Had she gone mad? What was possessing her?

"My Lady has a strange way of denying herself," murmured the cryptic girl, pressing onward and harder. Unlike Sachiko, her eyes never faltered. Indeed, they swam with an almost supernaturally powerful determination. "I will repent in any way you wish for being unable to tell you everything. But at night, I was visited by premonitions, by dreams. I dreamt that if I was by your side, you might be safer."

Who in Saint Chinensis' name was this mysterious girl?

"I have locked you in here, stripped you bare. You falter not, then. You wish me to impart to you the courtly way of soeurship..." muttered the bouton, feeling almost overpowered. "To show you what it's like for one girl to deeply, truly, love another..."

The naked Yumi nodded, hair spilling down her shoulders, her soft lips and eyes parted sensually. "From your perfect, perfect hands... Great Chinensis Baroness... My Lady. Teach me the way of courtship, woman to woman. I will drink your every word and touch, swallow all your counsel and make it my own."

Sachiko's eyes were narrow, her throat dry. It was as if Yumi's languid, submissive expression was possessed by an authority of its own. She nodded, and Yumi stepped forward. "May I touch you, mistress?" asked Yumi, her shaking hands slowly pressing on her own nipples. "May we comfort each other?"

"Address me with that most intimate, overpowering finality, and then perhaps you may," whispered Sachiko, as she raised herself and opened her arms. No longer could she resist. "Stay here with me."

Yumi slowly pressed a knee on the bed. Pouting, she climbed on, crawling towards the almost paralysed Sachiko. The other could only draw the naked girl into her arms. She stared down at the sensual Yumi, who was melting into her embrace. Sachiko's heart ached, ached like never before. "Who in the nine worlds are you?" she whispered desperately, cupping Yumi's flushing cheek.

"I cannot say yet," murmured Yumi, gazing back up passionately. "I am so sorry. My body and heart will be your compensation."

"You had better have some answers for me later. Now, tear off my clothes."

The slave-turned-soeur, seduced-turned-seductress's eyes shone as Sachiko began to kiss her, her fingers sliding along her back. Her irises were completely calm as she gave herself to her new mistress, obediently grasping at her satin and ripping it away so that they could touch as one flesh. And Yumi's eyes remained calm even as the couple began to sigh and moan together, and her thoughts remained crystal-clear even while the crying Sachiko opened up herself and began to discover emotions she had never, ever, felt with any other slave girl.

Staring at the wall behind her new mistress, Yumi slowly stroked the back of Sachiko's head, clutching her hair as the bouton held her tightly.

For the moment, the Baroness was safe.

Now, the war that would wilt all roses could begin.

* * *

**NEXT ACT: THE BLACK SHIPS OF HANADERA ARRIVE ON LILLIAN'S SHORES...**


	3. Flower of Valhalla

**- WARS OF THE ROSES -**

* * *

A lovely weekend to you, and welcome back to this reimagining of Marimite: an "elseworld" for our favourite Lillian students. Thanks for dropping by for a look, and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed planning it. :)

The Lillian Kingdom is a mystical continent ruled over by three opulent, royal houses. It's a fantastic land of magic and fairytales, where the aurora borealis can be seen every night. Big and friendly dragons thump their scaly tails on the meadow grass to welcome visitors. But grey clouds are gathering over these splendid isles.

The ancient love between Saints Chinensis, Foetida, and Gigantea is not forgotten, but feudal tensions continue to fester centuries later. Inter-family rivalry threatens to upset the already delicate balance of power between the noble lineages the Rose saints founded, now in the age of High Queen Shiori regnant.

In the middle of the feuding between these brave and beautiful women, one superpower stands poised to reap the spoils – Yuki's Republic of Hanadera, a virulently anti-monarchist, modern nation-state. Fractured and divided, technologically inferior, uncertain of their futures: do the warring dominions stand a chance against their prospective colonists? But what are Yuki's reasons for invading the old continent?

Meanwhile, an enigmatic girl called Yumi has recently been knighted as the Red Baroness's new petite soeur...

* * *

**- Act III - **

**- Flower of Valhalla -**

* * *

Blinking, Yumi stared at the stunning feast before her on the long, wooden table. Smoked salmon. Freshly baked bread, still warm, fluffy and crispy from the fire's hearth. Seasonal fruits like apples and grapes, harvested and kept for only the wealthiest, land-owning castes of noblewomen. Boar roasted on a spit, and venison, cooked and even seasoned with spices from distant lands, where the land was more fertile and arable. All served on large plates carved out of oak. It was a sensory assault, decadence the intended impression. She looked down at her drink, which was contained in an ivory tusk and fastened to the table by two silver holders.

And then she looked at the cross-shaped, gold rosary dangling around her neck. It was the greatest gift, the highest honour, the Red Baroness could ever bestow on her.

"Eat, and eat heartily. You are my new huskarl... no, you are a huskarl of _nobility_. Your decorum and pride must match such an office. Not to mention your appetite." The Baroness paused, watching Yumi nibble modestly at a loaf of brown bread. She looked quite different, dressed in the winter garb of an aristocrat. Yumi's dark green coat, which had a collar lined with the fur of slain polar bears, hugged her thin body tightly, in contrast to Sachiko's extravagant red cape. Yumi had chosen deep green breeches as well, completed by wolfskin boots. Finally, her hair was done up in two pigtails - no longer did it drape past her shoulders.

She looked more childish, and in a way, less... sensual. It was a relief. Sachiko had explored more of her prize than any other woman in her life, and she was beginning to wonder what lay within the younger girl to elicit such desire.

With Yumi, it was as if Sachiko's heart and hands were mysteriously unbound, and only explosive bliss with her slave-turned-squire remained. And Yumi, ever obedient, eyes clasped shut when not gazing at Sachiko in wonder, moaned and mewled like an indulgent kitten. Those curled toes shattered any pretence of decorum from the Baroness. Emboldened and wild, she demanded, growled, that Yumi chart her burning flesh too. Yumi was shy, but the glimmer in her eyes confessed a mutual erotic longing. Thunderstruck Sachiko felt wanted beyond words, clasped, her night-dark hair pulled, kissed and licked all over and within. The bite marks they left on the other's necks, shoulders and elsewhere still ached. Their animalistic nights seemed to melt the snow outside the palace.

"Well? Have you grown accustomed to life as my soeur yet?"

Yumi shook her head. "I must say, I don't know," she confessed politely, taking an oversized wooden cup of mead. She looked gingerly at the alcoholic stuff, before setting it aside discreetly. "The danger of death in battle is great, if glorious. Yet if we are not side-by-side on the field, we are drowning in luxury, feasting on salmon and venison."

Sachiko shrugged. "Consider it your reward for daring to become my right-hand lady. The war of pedagogic love is a sumptuous and privileged life, to be sure. But it is also dangerous. That is why I haven't sent you into battle yet. One mistake, and your life is forfeit."

She paused, remembering the few sessions of sword drills she had Yumi participate in. The younger lady had picked up the art of the longsword (the most conspicuous weapon for a noblewoman) relatively quickly, but her swordplay was rusty, at times uncertain, and often off-balance. She needed more training. "Not that danger or death are to be feared. Dying in battle should be welcomed. Dishonour and disgrace is what makes us tremble. It would be unthinkable if I were to die a dishonourable death. I hate losing," she added, almost petulantly.

She raised her own drink, a gold-leafed cup brimming with mead. Yumi was half-expecting the Baroness to down the whole lot in one swig, but to her amusement, her grande soeur simply sipped daintily at the brim, hardly drinking any at all. Then she made a disdainful face, putting the cup back down. Obviously, she actually despised the warrior's beverage and would only drink it for show. "I feel like in another life, another world, I would never have wanted to touch this muck," complained the Red bouton. She raised an eyebrow. "Why are you giggling?"

"Nothing," said Yumi, her hand muffling her mirth. "I just don't think alcohol suits your... _character_, onee-sama."

"What insolence. What honesty," declared Sachiko, almost unaware that she was chuckling quietly along, too. There was no mistaking it. There was something truly magical about her new petite soeur.

They finished dinner (or a fraction of it) and walked out onto the high stone terrace of the palace to watch the stars and night sky. All around the ramparts of Chinensis Palace was snow, a common visitation in the cold Lillian nights. Sachiko held Yumi in silence in the chilly, refreshing air, her arms wrapped around her waist. Few words needed to pass between them, even when they made love. It never bothered Sachiko, for the first time in her life, that this subordinate whose life was in her hands would not even tell her where she came from.

"Someday, we will have to be honest with each other," said Sachiko, with a hint of sullenness in her gentle voice.

"Onee-sama?"

"I'm being carried along our tides of delight like a hapless longship amidst a storm. One day, it won't be enough. I will want to know why you let me choose you. Why you seduced me. Even now, I don't know why you demanded my rosary. Why I did I feel compelled to tell you I love you?" Sachiko could swear that Yumi's apologetic eyes reflected the aurora borealis itself, a river of glimmering lights and stars. But just as quickly, that reflection was gone.

"Why can I see the ethereal lights in your sweet eyes?" wondered Sachiko aloud.

Yumi looked up at the Baroness. "Legends say that the Hall of Heroines, the paradise of the brave, lies in the cradle of those stars. And there, the Rose saints drink, fight, and make love to each other," she murmured, skirting her grande soeur's question.

"Why are you suddenly speaking of the afterlife, charming as it sounds?" sniffed Sachiko. "All women in the Lillian Kingdom worship the Virgin now. It was decreed by Her Majesty, Shiori the Pious. As for the old, pagan ways? None of us know what to believe these days."

"Of course," agreed Yumi, smiling. "Who knows where the Rose saints dwell now, anyway."

Sachiko took her new soeur's hand. "You're rambling, silly lass. Are you tired?" whispered the Baroness.

"Yes," admitted Yumi. "The way of soeur courtship is no ordinary venture. And your... wolfish appetite... has taxed me rigorously."

"You shall rest tonight, then," said the blushing Sachiko, sensing that Yumi was indeed tired and not simply jesting. They shared a gentle kiss, one of many they had enjoyed. Soft touch on soft touch. Lips on lips. Sigh on sigh. They closed their eyes, breathing in each other. Magnificent. "Come. A quiet night it shall be," said the Baroness, pulling away and giving a small smile.

Yumi's brown eyes glimmered again, ever so briefly, with the aurora's turquoise and emerald glow.

"_Valhalla... cracked and opened_..." she whispered, her high voice suddenly a sinister hiss.

"Yumi? Come, now."

"Of course. Sorry, onee-sama."

Yumi's eerie eyes no longer shone. She clutched Sachiko's hand and followed her to her quarters to retire.

* * *

_Foetida Palace_

Shimazu Yoshino was the model Lady amongst ladies. The most striking of her physical features were her large, feminine brown eyes, and her chestnut braids that were weaved immaculately from her otherwise long hair. All her people revered her, such was her impeccable decorum. But it was also thought that she was weak. Wrapped in Rei's magnificent bouton's mantle, she took a swig of mead from the silver goblet, nodding at her worried grande soeur gratefully. "I'm feeling better, Rei-chan," she said. "All because of you."

Rei nodded nervously, clad in her full plate armour. The inseparable cousins sat together on a bench by the central cloister. The Foetida stronghold was an incredibly large complex, and this courtyard was only one within a cluster of rune-carved galleries. Rei clutched Yoshino's hand. "Are you sure it is wise to start moving around?" she asked. She had worried herself sick over the ambush launched by Princess Shimako. Several weeks ago, Shimako had attacked Yoshino with a division of her elite warriors, and later joined the fray personally. Together, Yoshino and Rei managed to beat a hasty retreat from the powerful apprentice to Tsarina Satou Sei, but Rei was still worried that Yoshino's wounds had not fully recovered. "You only recently just started walking again. Shimako-chan's boyars are formidable fighters, and..."

Yoshino smiled. "I've heard it all before, Rei-chan. I know I'm not the strongest of Foetida warriors. Indeed, I'm no match for Shimako-san at all. It's always you who saves me. But for now, I'll be fine."

Rei nodded guiltily. "You must be thirsty. I'll go get some hot mead for you."

Yoshino nodded thankfully. She closed her deep brown eyes and set down her goblet. "I'm still a bit tired, though. Come back soon, Rei-chan."

Standing up, Rei took one last worried glance at her beloved cousin, and strode away from her presence.

* * *

Yoshino slowly opened her eyes, smiling grimly as she sensed Rei's departure. Then she rose too, breaking into a brisk walk in the opposite direction. No longer did she limp, like she did in front of her grande soeur. She strode energetically past the immense pillars of her home, on which were carved various runic inscriptions, approaching the great door to the main hall. She knew who waited behind those doors, and her strong arms pushed against the creaking wood. With an immense groan, they gave way to Yoshino's forceful hands, revealing a yawning but sparse hall with a waiting woman at its centre. Light lilted through the stained glass windows, on which were painted glorious depictions of blonde Saint Foetida and her longsword.

Yoshino's winter shoes slowly began to walk on the cool stone, towards the woman.

Rosa Foetida didn't turn around. "I had wondered when this day would come," said Eriko. "I wondered when you'd make your little move at last." She listened calmly to Yoshino's footsteps, her yellow, flower-embroidered cape motionless behind her. "You're a cruel girl for lying to Rei. You weren't injured that severely at all."

"I'm not that weak," said Yoshino, smiling. "Many unfortunate women have died underestimating me. And Rei-chan, too! She thought I was so frail that she's gone off somewhere to get whatever she thinks is good for me. Leaving me a private moment with you at last. I admire you for not assigning any guards here. But then again, you've always only trusted Rei-chan."

"Then we do have some common ground." Eriko smiled. "Why now, here?"

"Let's just say that the runes are aligned auspiciously today. I _will_ topple you."

"There is nothing that can quench your hatred, is there? So you are adamant on tearing this prestigious house and its traditions apart?"

"Yes," whispered Yoshino, eyes glinting with the hunger of a prowling wolf. "If that means I can tear _you_ apart."

The highest aristocrat of the Foetida empire suddenly drew her dwarven-forged sword, spreading her arms as she turned around. She glared at Yoshino.

"I always wondered why Rei loved a power-hungry, double-crossing little wench like you. Come then, whelp," spat Torii Eriko, tapping the golden diadem hugging her prominent forehead. "Wrest this royal crown from my scalp! Usurp my office and overthrow me!"

Yoshino growled hatefully and revealed her own weapon, lifting her yellow cloak and hoisting up the one-handed mace that hung from the side of her belt. "I'll beat you blind, Rosa Foetida." Eriko licked her lips as Yoshino dashed forward with blinding speed, raising her deadly club as naturally as she would do against a Chinensis or Gigantea foe. No, perhaps that was how Yoshino had thought of Eriko all this time. Down came the mace's fearsome, spiked head, and Eriko slipped aside, letting it smash into the stone of the castle floor. Debris shot past her, and she backed away cautiously from the small crater that Yoshino's mace left. Yoshino let out a sharp cry again and swung again, aiming for Eriko's head. But with an agile twist of her waist, Eriko ducked the blow. With the Dame still recovering from her attack, Eriko's leg shoved roughly, arrogantly, against Yoshino's. Jamming her junior's movements, Rosa Foetida grabbed Yoshino's arm roughly with her free hand. Yoshino tried to wrench herself away, but Eriko's grip was implacable.

"Do you hate me? Surely there are more civil ways to settle our petty jealousies over Rei," pondered the Yellow Rose coolly, staring into Yoshino's shocked face.

Seizing the moment, Rosa Foetida struck Yoshino across the cheek with a contemptuous backhand, before kicking her away with a scornful boot. Nose bruised, Yoshino screamed in frustration as she sprawled along the floor. "Just how many women do you think I've commanded and led? How many men have willingly thrown themselves into my freezing slave pits so they could joylessly breed for our future generations?" said Eriko angrily, walking slowly towards the gasping girl. Yoshino's mace had rolled out of her hand, and Eriko nudged it out of her junior's reach with the tip of her boot. "Just how arrogant must you be to try dethroning me? Has your hatred eclipsed all reason, all sense of self-preservation?"

Her grimace suddenly softened into a frown. "It wasn't meant to be like this, Yoshino-chan. For all our rivalry, I really cared for you, too." Yoshino slowly got up, glaring at Eriko. "Admit defeat," demanded the Yellow Rose, pointing her sovereign's sword at her. "You are no match for a Rose. Swear that you will never try these laughable antics on me again. Then I may spare you an ignoble execution."

"You? Show me mercy?" Yoshino's lip curled as her hand suddenly slipped inside her cloak. "There's no need for that."

Eriko's complacent eyes widened at a deafening sound ringing in her ear. She jumped instinctively. Was it an explosion? Did someone light a torch? Or was it burning oil? No, this was not a sound she had ever heard before. Then what was this stabbing pain? It was no sword cut, nor was it the bite of a spear's tip. But the pain was a piercing one, burying itself inside her flank like a small dagger. So what in the nine worlds was it?

Yoshino smiled triumphantly.

"What – what is this?" moaned Eriko, glancing woozily at her wet left hand. Her fingers and palm were soaked in blood.

Her world was beginning to flicker like a dying candle.

She couldn't see her blurred surroundings clearly. She wasn't so sure what was happening anymore.

"What… what in the Virgin's name is that?" she groaned, staring at the long... was it a metal tube?... that Yoshino was clutching.

"Do you smell your impending death? Are you afraid of this noise that shakes your palace's walls? Do you finally understand?" taunted the Dame, staring hatefully at the stricken Yellow Rose as smoke blew from the deadly barrel.

"This is an invention from a distant land. It's called gunpowder. And things are going to change around here."

* * *

"I'm sick of this intergenerational feud," sighed Yoshino, marveling at the craftsmanship of the curved, wood-and-metal pistol. It was ornate, elegant, and looked completely harmless. Only the hole inside this long tube gave any hint that it was meant to actually hurt someone. The would-be usurper raised the barrel near her lips, and she mockingly blew away the lilting smoke.

"How dare you do this. Where did you get such an instrument of witchery?" whispered Eriko woozily, her knees buckling. Her hand still clutched her side, but it did not stem the flow of blood.

"Someone had to make the first move to break this cycle of hatred. You're right. I always despised how you and Rei-chan looked at each other. But it's about more than jealousy. It's about progress. Rei-chan believes in reconciliation, in a bold end to this war. You're an outdated artefact that needs shelving away in our ancient libraries. You were always more interested in keeping Rosa Chinensis and Rosa Gigantea at bay. You three actually really like each other, don't you? I see through your petty bickering at public ceremonies before Her Majesty. Too proud to enter into a renewed alliance, yet too scared to kill each other," rebuked Yoshino scornfully. "Do you want our three houses to keep fighting like this forever?"

"You don't know what it's been like, Yoshino-chan. How could you ever understand the unhappy bonds between us Roses?" cried Eriko, her shaking legs giving way. "Do you think killing women you love is so easy? Rei! Where is my bouton!" barked the manic Yellow Rose with the last of her strength, her face sweating and pale, blood draining away from her clammy cheeks. "You're supposed to be protecting me!"

"Forget it. Rei-chan won't lay a hand on me," declared Yoshino. "Your cry for help is useless. It's time for her to assume your crown, and for me to take her side as the new bouton."

Rei's regretful voice rang out from across the hallway. "I'm sorry. But I will indeed lay a hand on you if you try to hurt onee-sama again."

"So you must have heard the warcry of this new weapon, Rei-chan… Look!" Yoshino turned around and eagerly gestured at her pistol, ignoring Rei's grave expression. "See this? We don't need Eriko-san anymore. Look at what I've imported!" Her eyes glinted as she raised the peculiar… thing in her hand. "This is unlike anything we've seen before! This wonder is called black powder. Hidden within this weapon are balls of lead, fired with incredible velocity. It lets you wage war without even touching the enemy – "

"Say no more. Not another word, young lady," said the Yellow Duchess, who didn't look very surprised by Yoshino's daring rebellion. Much to the Dame's shock, Rei drew her sword and pointed it at her own cousin, the cousin she adored.

"Rei, what - "

"I had tried to turn a blind eye to your treachery. But you just had to force this battle. Worse, you lied to me about your wounds so you could stage this little spectacle. I won't let you become a traitor by killing a Rose. It is a crime comparable to the murder of the High Queen herself."

Yoshino's deflated face fell further. "You… you too, Rei-chan?" asked the young Dame, crushed. "I thought…" She gritted her teeth. "I thought you would _praise_ me! I want _you_ to be Rosa Foetida!" she spat, as despair quickly boiled over into outrage. "Don't you wish to rule over this great empire, with me as your faithful partner? To take on Chinensis and Gigantea with brilliant new firearms like these?"

"Rest assured," growled the Yellow bouton, her resolved words masking her torn feelings. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm not even going to hurt you. But I _will_ disarm you, and I _will_ punish you for daring to lay a hand on our Yellow Rose. And then I'm going to confiscate that toy you're holding." Her eyes widened as she glimpsed the teetering Eriko collapse to the floor. "Onee-sama!"

"Oh, you can rest assured, too," laughed Yoshino darkly. Her manic eyes glinted. "I would never presume to take stupid Rei-chan on."

The loud _BLAM_ of mysterious weapons - this time much louder than Yoshino's - thundered throughout the hall of Foetida Palace. Truly, never before had there resounded a comparable sound. Wide-eyed Rei was the recipient of those weapons, and her plate armour was completely useless in protecting her against the sharp lead pieces that penetrated and lodged themselves in her body. Reeling from the sharp, paralyzing pain, Rei glanced up, coughing blood. The hall's doors had given way to a division of soldiers. And to her and Eriko's astonishment, they were not women, but men. Most were slightly taller, physically bigger, and their shoulders squarer. Cleanly shaved, they were all wearing the same uniform - a grey coat complemented by grey breeches, with tall helmets and black boots. Affixed to their belts were golden scabbards that held light, mobile curved swords...

"Men?" groaned Rei. "Didn't... we lock them all up?" But they couldn't be men of Lillian. They were foreign, uniformed, and evidently warriors, unlike Lillian men. And _these_ soldiers: they were positioned most curiously. There were two lines of them. Four were on one knee, pointing their bizarrely shaped weapons at her. The four comrades standing behind them also clutched long barrels.

"No, wait!" shrieked Yoshino. "She's not the target!"

But it was too late. One of the eager men had already attacked with an instrument similar to the small contraption Yoshino was holding. It was unlike anything Rei had ever experienced. He didn't even run up to her, or move towards her at all. He simply pulled back his bizarre instrument, and accompanying the deflagration was a sharp, blindingly sharp projectile that hurtled straight for the shaking Duchess. "What technology is this?" gurgled Rei incredulously, staggering back like a drunk, just accidentally dodging the horrific, miniscule pellet.

"Not spears, swords, or even bows or crossbows! You incestuous, backwater royals," he crowed triumphantly. The word that next passed the lips of that nameless footsoldier would revolutionize the long history of Lillian's medieval domains forever.

"_Arquebuses_!"

"You… Yoshino… You let _these_ hostile foreigners in here?" moaned Rei, clutching at her new wound. She looked mournfully at the Dame, who suddenly no longer seemed so sure of herself. "How could you do this to us?"

"What folly. What a farce. You will regret this, Yoshino-chan," wheezed Eriko, gripping the floor with a hand to stop herself from fainting. She couldn't quite make out Yoshino or Rei's face or even the men - everything was blurred. "You will rue the day you dealt with people the Foetida neither knows nor trusts. You have signed a treasonous, infernal pact with an external enemy."

"Don't you dare hurt Rei-chan again!" screamed Yoshino suddenly, turning to the men. "We were supposed to be victorious together, Rei-chan and me! This was _not_ part of the deal!"

"Make ready!" came a deep-pitched shout, and the uniformed, perfectly lined soldiers cocked their foreign weapons, preparing them for a new onslaught. "_Aaaaand_ present...!"

"_STOP_!" shrieked Yoshino, as the men pointed their cold, silver muzzles at Rei's helpless form.

"FIRE!" barked the commander, and eight barrels recoiled together, their lethal pellets pummelling into Rei's already bleeding back. Her plate armour pierced straight through, she screamed in dizzying agony, swaying but refusing to fall. She supported her destroyed body by planting her sword on the ground, its blade digging grimly into the floor. Her blood sloshed and splattered the stone.

"Im… impossible…" she whispered. "Like… like a flash of deathly light and smoke…" Gritting her teeth through the pain - and the pain was truly crippling - she steadied her trembling knees, refusing to give an inch of ground to these devastating, so-called arquebuses. She realized at once. They weren't swords. Swords were personal, noble, respectful. Swords slew people at close range, where the eyes of equals could meet respectfully, even though defeat was always certain for one. But these monstrosities...

Could they kill just with a _click_ of those small levers behind the men's forefingers?

"Cowards," snarled the stunned Yellow Duchess, short hair matted, eyes wide in fury, blood spraying past her teeth. "It's been some time since I even looked upon a man, let alone fought one. But wherever your accursed technology comes from, the Foetida clan won't kneel!" She glared at the male soldiers defiantly. "You will regret assaulting the Foetida House, and trespassing on the territory of Her Majesty the High Queen!"

"Prime and load!" shouted the men's leader, looking slightly disturbed by Rei's persistence. "Finish her!"

Clenching her watering eyes, Rei cried out again, throwing up blood again, her new, unfamiliar wounds overwhelming her senses. Her mind, however, remained as sharp as her blade. She glanced at the panicking Yoshino, and to the latter's astonishment, she still had strength to smile through the agony.

"I love and forgive you, Yoshino."

"Rei-chan?" whispered Yoshino, lip trembling.

"But as you can see, I'm at a slight disadvantage. I'm sorry," gritted the Duchess reluctantly. Without another word, she released her sword, abandoning it, and ran, much to the surprise of the arquebusiers. She staggered past the stunned Yoshino, sprinting straight for the motionless Eriko.

"Prime and load, you fools!" came the urgent men's bellows. "She's getting away! How can she still move in that suit of armour?"

Thinking quickly, Rosa Foetida en bouton managed to bend her waist, scooping up the still Yellow Rose in her arms before charging at one of the stained glass windows. Time seemed to slow in desperation for her. Her punctured armour pouring gore from nine metal orbs lodged inside her flesh and bones, she threw herself at the opening, smashing through the glass and hurling herself past the falling shards.

The division of male soldiers lowered their arquebuses. "We had to climb several flights of stone stairs to get up here. There is no way she can survive such a plummet," declared one of them.

"It would be better to check. Send word to the next available group and see if there's a bleeding woman limping about with a corpse," said another, to callous sniggers and guffaws.

Yoshino whipped around, slightly distressed. She did not expect them to touch her cousin. "That last volley was completely unnecessary," she snarled. "I told you who you were meant to shoot. Try anything funny again, and - "

"Apparently, her loyalty to you was not quite as certain as you promised. If that's the case, we cannot permit her to resist us." The soldiers smirked. The door to the hall slowly groaned and creaked, slowly opening and giving way to a new contingent of uniformed men. Yoshino's heart was beating hard as she stared at the fearsome lines of arquebuses on their shoulders. Now Rosa Foetida was gone, Rei with her. Their fates were completely uncertain. This was unexpected, to say the least. What exactly had she hoped to achieve? Had she made a mistake in moving against Rosa Foetida like this? After all, she never thought Rei would defend Eriko.

"Thank you, Dame Foetida," came the modest, very normal voice of a young boy. "We owe you dearly for this victory. As promised, you will now command the Foetida House. Or not. It's up to you." His eyes were quite non-threatening. "Just let us start building roads for our soldiers. Keeping the noble houses divided and disunited is our top priority. So if you're up for leading the Foetida to defeat Chinensis and Gigantea, then I'd gladly supply you with as many matchlocks and cannons as you need. I can even spare you a ship or two."

Yoshino squinted at the young man emerging from the crowd of arquebusiers. "You're their leader? The one who's been writing all those letters to me?" She frowned. "You don't look like much of a commander. What was your name again?"

The boy with a messy mop of brown hair gave a short nod as he adjusted the buttons on his grey, high-collared coat. Hands stiffly by his side, he gave a respectful bow at the waist, in polite contrast to the dozens of tall, intimidating soldiers behind him. "Sorry, milady." He cleared his throat nervously, completely devoid of any statesmanship or gravitas.

"_Ahem_. Um. My name's Yuki. Fukuzawa Yuki, of the United States of Hanadera."

* * *

Somewhere, far away in the grey-skied territory of the Chinensis family, a naked girl raised her similarly brown-coloured hair from her grande soeur's bare bosom. The Red Baroness was fast asleep, but _she_ was wide awake. Her tresses spilled down her back. Her eyes swam with Valhalla's northern starlight, and her smile was broad. The girl's brown irises momentarily disappeared, eaten up by the aurora's brilliance, but she didn't care, because her mistress couldn't see her. Her mistress didn't know a single thing about the approaching blizzard yet.

Soon, in good time, she would.

"He's here," purred Fukuzawa Yumi, careful not to wake the older girl up. "I'm here too, my brother. And if your armies of gunpowder and men have arrived..."

Her hand gripped her darling's fingers tightly as she sat up on their warm bed.

"_So shall our gates creak and spill forth_..."

The quietly breathing Sachiko had no idea yet, but two star-crossed siblings would soon unleash a plague on all three houses.

* * *

The Hanaderian light cavalry was ready. A division of some seven men hoisted themselves on the whinnying steeds, cocking their long handguns outside the main gates of Foetida Palace. "She can't have gone far," said a lieutenant, adjusting his black helm. "No one has entered since we came, and that Foetida Dame has ordered her forces not to attack us."

"We sighted a horse bursting from the royal stables, heading west," cried one of the scouts. He glanced up at the grey skies, which were beginning to weep. Rain began to dash around and fall on the men, almost immediately soaking into their dull-coloured uniforms and weapons. Their steeds, which notably lacked heavy armour, snorted impatiently. "We must hurry. That woman might use the weather and terrain to her advantage. We're still newcomers to this miserable continent. And we can't use our matchlocks while riding, either."

"Then, gentlemen, we have our prey," called out another sergeant over the deluge. "It can only be her. Prepare our small firearms. We ride!"

* * *

Rei tried not to cry as she looked down at her panting mistress in her arms. Here was the perfect, aloof woman who had knighted her because she looked so handsome and interesting. Rei never imagined Eriko could enter Valhalla like this. She let out a louder cry, and the horse understood, galloping forth with all its strength. Already Foetida Palace had disappeared from their sight, and all around them were rainwashed plains, usually sun-dappled Foetida territory.

"Forgive the discomfort, onee-sama," she apologized, spurring the steed onward even as she held the Yellow Rose and steadied her from the horse's galloping.

"Rei," rasped Eriko, her eyes shut tightly. "Don't be so reckless. Losing my castle and life is annoying. But I don't want to lose you, too."

"We're both dying. And if our lives must come to an end together, then I want my last breath to expire on your lips," replied the Duchess, slightly dizzy from the life seeping out of her flesh and past her armour. She spurred on her horse, rainwater from its drenched mane mixing with the two women's blood. "But... even a proud soeur must know when fleeing is better than nothing."

"They're here," whispered Eriko in warning. "Horses."

The Hanaderian riders were catching up with her frantic steed. Rei glanced back, taking in the sight of at least six enemies. "On her!" barked the leader's voice, and his subordinates raised their ornate pistols. More deafening shots rang through the wet shower. Clutching her horse's reins and keeping a tight grip on Eriko, Rei ducked wildly, unsure about the trajectories of those projectiles. But since she couldn't feel any sudden pain, the men seemed to have missed. Still, she had no weapons with her, and had left her sword in the palace. What could she do to shake them off?

"Rei..." Eriko nudged her weakly, and Rei glanced down in surprise. "My dagger..." moaned Rosa Foetida, cloudy eyes gazing up at her petite soeur. "It's all I have."

"Slaying their commander will suffice," snarled Rei in thanks, slipping her hand underneath Eriko's cloak and searching for the blade tucked under her belt. "Onee-sama's wound is deep," she whispered fearfully, as she felt the small hole underneath Eriko's robes.

Eriko smiled sadly, clutching Rei's armour and shirt. "But you have many more."

Slipping Eriko's dagger from her sheath, Rei turned her head slightly, watching the pursuing men carefully. Their leader was at the front, the fastest of the lot and the one with the glittering badges affixed to his left breast. Well, at least they weren't cowards that lurked from the back. She could respect that.

She steered her horse to the right as she saw another Hanaderian point his pistol at her. The shot was loud, but to Rei's relief, her prediction had been accurate and he missed again.

_If they can't aim properly, then they can't hurt me. It must be hard to shoot while riding, too. _

_These new weapons are superior, but imperfect_.

That thought encouraged Rei, ever the collected and cool strategist. Licking her lips in concentration, she whipped briefly around and threw Eriko's dagger at where she anticipated their leader would ride. It was too late for the commander's horse to change course. With a loud _thuck_, the spinning, blindingly fast blade buried itself in his left breast, breaking past his badges and sinking deep into his beating heart. Eyes wide, he gurgled in defeat, dropping his gun and clutching his coat. But it was too late to pull out the dagger as his body tumbled off and sprawled along the begrimed ground. Cries from his subordinates could be heard, and suddenly the hooves of her pursuers' steeds stopped.

"Endure, onee-sama," whispered the relieved Rei, as her horse continued to gallop. "They're trying to retrieve their leader's body now. It was a gamble to assume they would, but we had no choice."

Thanks to Rei's mind-boggling skill, they had bought some time.

She bent down, closing her eyes and kissing Eriko's drenched forehead sorrowfully. Her tender lips ran over the shining diadem of the Foetida family, pressing lovingly on Eriko's wet skin and threads of hair. "I will save you, my beloved onee-sama. This is all my fault. I swear on my rosary to avenge this dishonour. But please forgive Yoshino."

Eriko gripped Rei tighter. "That stupid, stupid girl. She used that... black magic on me. I just wanted to frighten her, but then she had to go so far."

"This gunpowder is anything but witchcraft," whispered Rei. She was slowly, gradually, beginning to understand the cold logic of the weapon called an arquebus. "Any trained warrior can see it's just another instrument of violence, but far more terrifying than even the sharpest sword."

"Where are we going?" whimpered Eriko.

"To Sachiko," said Rei without a second's hesitation. "Chinensis territory."

"This is humiliating, Rei," moaned Eriko, her head pressed against Rei's chest. She closed her eyes, feeling slightly warmer in her petite soeur's protective bosom. "To approach Youko and Sachiko-chan like this..."

"I respectfully disagree, onee-sama," said Rei, her eyes remarkably focused. She held her grande soeur closer, kissing her again. "Perhaps, in some perverse way, this is what the great spirits intended." Rain continued to pour all around them, but despite her weakening body and terror for Eriko's life, she felt that with Yoshino's mutiny, something was truly about to change in the Lillian Kingdom. After today's tragedy, this realm would never be the same.

Yoshino hadn't just inflicted a crushing tactical defeat on them. Nor had she simply staged a royal coup.

This was a revolution.

But out of the ashes of any revolution arose unity. The Yellow Duchess knew _unity_ was the elusive panacea that Lillian so desperately thirsted for. And when she remembered, in happier days before they became boutons, the hands of the Red Baroness cupping her cheeks, crimson lips stroking her nose, those knuckles gently massaging her back, she knew exactly who to turn to. Who better to resist this new army of men than one who despised the male creature?

Rosa Foetida en bouton would be back for her beloved cousin. This she promised.

* * *

_Late evening_

Sachiko hurried down the winding stone stairs, running round and round in circles as she descended to the ground level. She passed the crackling torches on the wall and pushed open the door. She burst out into the raining courtyard of the castle. All around were women-at-arms and huskarls, shouting animatedly at each other. Scouts at the portcullis, the stables, and the catapults had reported that a lone horsewoman was making for Chinensis Palace. Sachiko already had a good idea of who it was. Did Rei intend to approach her directly to appeal for an alliance? Surely this was not the right time. "What is happening?" she cried to the confused women, blinking away the rain that was now running through her hair. "Tell me why you're in such disarray!"

"Make way! Make way for the Red Rose!" barked a knight's voice behind her. She could hear knees bending, clanswomen genuflecting. Sachiko turned to see her mistress striding over, flanked by two armoured women.

"Something is amiss, onee-sama," said the bouton, as Youko stood beside her.

"The guards have been talking about a Foetida horsewoman approaching our hill fort," agreed Rosa Chinensis. Her face did not look pleased, but concerned. "What's going on?"

_Boom_. The wooden gate to the courtyard burst open, and three Chinensis guardswomen were sent sprawling onto the muddy ground. Eyes wide, Sachiko and Youko watched as a whinnying horse galloped into sight, bearing the rider and the person she was cradling. "It's Rei!" called out Sachiko, instantly recognizing the tall, thin figure. Caked in mud and rainwater, Rei slid off her exhausted horse and shambled unsteadily towards the two Chinensis nobles, clinging to a shaking, bleeding body. "Why are you here? This is no way for a diplomatic foe to visit – "

She stopped when she peered at Rei's tearstained, desolate face. "This... these are wounds!" Sachiko broke out of her stunned trance and hurried over to the pale and worn Duchess. "You're hurt! Wait. Where is Yoshino-chan? Why isn't she with you" she asked suspiciously, nearing Rei's struggling form.

The cloak on the body Rei was holding fell away, blown aside by the rainy wind. Eyes rolling faintly, head lolling back, the feverish face of the once-mighty Yellow Rose could be seen by all, much to the shock of the Chinensis warriors. Cries arose among the bewildered knights. "It's Rosa Foetida! Who could have defeated her and her mighty bouton like this?" Sachiko and her knights could hardly believe their eyes at the sorry sight, and Youko's grimace turned even darker.

"What manner of wounds have been inflicted upon my Yellow equal?" asked the Red Rose, with a threatening hint to her voice. The rumble of thunder made it all the more menacing. Rain poured past Youko's eyelashes, gleaning out the rage burning behind her dark pupils. "Who dares reduce my Eriko to such a state?"

"What happened, Rei?" whispered Sachiko. Dread dawned on her as she remembered the rumours of Yoshino's rebellion. "What calamity has befallen the House of Foetida?"

"Sanctuary, noble Baroness," howled Rei, hugging Eriko's cold, shivering body. Surrounded by Chinensis women, the distraught Duchess slowly sank to her knees on the muddy ground, surrendering before the horrified Sachiko, pleading for clemency. "Upon my proud honour, I beg of you. _Give us sanctuary_!"

* * *

**NEXT ACT.**

**YUKI'S CONQUEST BEGINS.**

**LILLIAN'S SHIRES AND CASTLES ****BURN...**

**THE BANNERS OF RED AND YELLOW RISE TOGETHER AGAIN!**


	4. The Love We Share

**- WARS OF THE ROSES -**

* * *

Hi there! Thanks for visiting my story and for any feedback. :) How quickly do the weeks go by these days (I wasn't aware almost a month has passed)! Anyhow, I hope this fourth chapter is fun, and for those participating in NaNoWriMo (some of you may know that this month of November is National Novel Writing Month), godspeed with your original fiction writing. I'm joining in too. ^.^

In the last chapter, Rei and Eriko were expelled from their own castle by Yoshino in an unexpected coup. The fiery girl's victory was made possible by a terrifying new arsenal of arms imported from the United States of Hanadera, which is intent on conquering the Kingdom of Lillian. With the House of Foetida in chaos, the Hanaderians turn their attention to defeating the three clans once and for all. In this buckling Kingdom torn between power and corruption, there seems only one route to survival against this new threat: reunification.

But before the three clans come together and charge beside each others' steeds once more, their leaders must put their centuries-old animosity behind them. Will the Red Baroness and the Yellow Duchess cross their raised swords as comrades? Will the mighty White Rose deign to join the houses of yellow and red? What does the war between two mysterious siblings, Yumi and Yuki, really mean for Lillian?

* * *

**- Act IV -**

**- This Love We Share - **

* * *

_Chinensis Palace. Guest bedchamber_

Dry and comfortable, sheltered from the storm outside the castle, Rosa Chinensis en bouton clenched her jaw and closed her eyes as her Yellow counterpart's shrieks of agony drowned out even the booming thunder and pattering rainstorm. The Red Baroness stood frozen outside the guestchamber, unable to bring herself to join the royal surgeons as they applied leeches desperately to the nine wounds that dotted the Duchess's broken form. Sachiko bit her lip as she heard Rei wailing Yoshino's name, only to be roughly, forcibly gagged by a wet cloth by the surgeons to stop her from biting off her own tongue. From there on, there was only muffled crying and the occasional _bump_ of the table on which Rei had been tied to, to stop her naked, bleeding body from thrashing and distracting the royal doctors from their grim work.

It had been dragging on for two whole nights now.

Sachiko bit her lip, not sure how long she could stand here. She was not so heartless as to simply leave, having carried the exhausted Rei here herself, but this was all too much to bear. She wasn't used to seeing someone she admired in so much agony.

"My Lady," came Yumi's unexpected voice. The Red bouton glanced up from the stone ground, meeting brown eyes illuminated by the torches affixed to the castle walls. "Are you alright?" asked the younger woman softly, who looked resplendent in her white fur and dark green felt.

"Of course," said Sachiko, swallowing and trying in vain to dislodge the lump in her dry throat. "Hasekura Rei is an enemy of the Chinensis House. My lifelong nemesis. I am simply doing what any honourable opponent would have done."

Yumi nodded. "Of course, onee-sama." She didn't know Hasekura Rei, but quite clearly, she was a noblewoman whom Sachiko respected deeply. "No one would abandon two women in such physical agony and emotional distress. You absolutely did the right thing."

Silence passed between them for several prolonged moments.

"She was far from my lifelong enemy," admitted Sachiko suddenly, her throat dry. "We only ever raised our swords against one another because we became soeurs under the Chinensis and Foetida banners."

"I know," whispered Yumi, eyes shining.

"Stay," blurted Sachiko. This was unbearable. She stared at her petite soeur, who did not look surprised at all. "Stay," she begged, her voice wilting to a helpless rasp. "Someone has crippled Rei like this, and I thought I would relish the day I did something of the sort to her body. Now look at me. I'm crying," she said bitterly, bleak eyes welling with tears. Those brimming droplets began to run down her lashes and down her cheeks. "Now do I realize I don't want Rei to die. By my hand, or anyone else's. Who have I been fooling?"

She felt Yumi wrap her arms around her, and she returned the embrace with a vicious hug, closing her eyes and letting her tears dash against Yumi's coat. The Baroness felt repulsively selfish, but she couldn't help herself. Surely her petite soeur would understand, just this once. "Yumi. Yumi," she gritted, her strangled throat repeating the name of her rescuer, nails digging into Yumi's body in self-reproach. "Only you can see me like this. Only you. No one else."

"I understand, onee-sama." Yumi stared up at the ceiling of the ancient corridor. "We must resist this invasion, these repulsive monsters who have done this to Rei-sama. You understand this too, surely? Onee-sama?"

"Of course," growled Sachiko, her face still buried in Yumi's shoulder. "My life for their destruction. I promise you this, Yumi. Their heads will not escape the swing of my blade."

Yumi smiled, patting Sachiko's back tenderly. "Marvellous. You've regained yourself, onee-sama. Let's talk with the others soon," she whispered into Sachiko's ear encouragingly, before nibbling it affectionately.

Sachiko sighed, turning her head, and they kissed. "You give me much-needed strength, Yumi."

The Red Baroness was noticeably calmer after that. Yumi felt so proud that she could bring comfort to her grande soeur so effortlessly.

Wonderful.

They would be meeting with Yuki very soon.

* * *

At last, the screaming had stopped.

But the rain was still falling, audibly pattering against the stone of Chinensis Palace. The thunder was still rumbling. Taking a deep breath, steadying herself, the Red Baroness gingerly pushed open the door, peeking inside. The room was illuminated by candles on the wooden table and the bedside stools. The bedsheets had been pushed aside. "Rei," called the Red Baroness softly. As she thought, Rei had left her bed, standing beside the table on which the surgeons had pulled out the foreign metal pellets. It had been cleaned of the blood and grime, but there were still some stains on the wood and on the carpeted floor. Her short hair damp with water, Rei was still shaking, although it was her emotional wounds that scarred deeper than her external injuries. Sachiko could still smell the scent of blood on the Duchess. But she had by and large rallied and recovered. What an extraordinary woman she was, marvelled Sachiko to herself, to have not only survived so many of these incredible wounds yet push back, and push back hard.

"Manners, Rei," rebuked the Red Baroness, staring sharply at the Yellow Duchess's form. "Look at me when I'm talking to you."

The leader of the Foetida knights slowly turned around, her expression one of dazed bemusement. She slowly gestured at her bandaged body, the linen wrapped around her breasts, her ribs, her slender waist. Only her arms hadn't been touched by the white cloth. "Maybe you should look at _me_. I'm ruined. A knight can't walk around like this, let alone carry a weapon," she said, her voice stunted, dulled. "I nearly failed my grande soeur. I failed Yoshino. Now she's turned her back on me. I need to go back and take her with us."

"Yoshino-chan will understand her mistake. I'm sure of it," said Sachiko quietly, weaving her concern into her words. "For now, you need to regain your strength. Lie back down. It's shameful, watching you waste away your energy like this."

Rei's lightless eyes flickered. "Yoshino. Did I commit some great crime against you? Why did you do this to me? How can I face our new enemies when you're among them? When you were the one who let them into our home?" Her knees felt weak as she uttered that incoherent monologue. She slowly began to sink to the ground, unaware that Sachiko was striding over to her, fire in her eyes.

"I want to die..."

She suddenly felt her shoulder grabbed roughly from behind. Wrenched around and glimpsing a pair of furious irises, the sharp slap from Sachiko's open palm rang through the bedchamber, its hot sting rushing through her cheek and blood vessels.

"Wake up, Hasekura Rei of Foetida," snarled Sachiko, flawless teeth bared like a queenly she-wolf's. "Who do you think you're uttering these words to? Enemy or not, _all_ will learn to hold their heads high before my presence!"

Staggering briefly, her hand clutching her face, Rei stared, gobsmacked, at the Baroness.

"Why are you telling me about your sorrow now, my old enemy?" said Sachiko softly, but firmly. "Where is the invincible knight who wields her great sword without any effort? There is no worthier opponent than you. I know no better foe. Your tears are wasted on me. Bequeath them to Yoshino. She will see sense, I swear my head on it. And in the meantime, bequeath your sword on the enemies that played to her weaknesses." Sachiko pursed her lips. "Who were they, Rei? You must tell me."

Rei's lip trembled. before Sachiko could embrace her she was already swept up in Rei's tight hug. Yellow beauty clutched red temptress to her, trembling, sinking slowly down Sachiko's torso, tears soaking into her crimson cloth and skin of her bosom. They slowly sank to their knees, scrabbling and clutching at each other, furious at being denied each other for so long, bittersweet that they could only reunite under such unhappy circumstances. "Sachiko. Sachiko. I'm so sorry. How you must hate me for this."

"No. No, no, no," whispered Sachiko desperately. The ice had cracked. She closed her eyes. "Rei." She squeezed the weeping Duchess tighter, no longer able to lie to herself or the Yellow bouton. "This is not hate I feel in my heart." At long last, the walls between them were tumbling down. It had taken a foreign invader to shake them out of their complacency, but it was at least done. "No. No more lies, no more false hate," whispered Sachiko fondly. "You are the Yellow Duchess. Who dares to challenge you?"

"You," sniffled Rei honestly, managing a choked chuckle. She looked up, her eyes kissing the other's. "You always have."

"Yes. Only me," declared Sachiko, her thumb stroking Rei's lip, "anyone else is but chaff."

The mortal enemies stared at each other. Tentative smiles turned into broad beams. They cuddled, giggling shrilly, before bursting out in laughter. They no longer needed to point swords at each other's necks. Their relief was palpable. Rei gently pushed the Red Baroness down, pinning her on the floor of the bedchamber, her hand running reverently through the lush black hair. Her fur cape spilled out on the ground, Sachiko stared up at her, lips flushing at Rei's finger.

"We must form an alliance," whispered Rei urgently. "This is not the time for Foetida and Chinensis to be fighting each other. Our ancient banners must rise together, amongst one army. If we continue our petty bickering, this new enemy will divide and destroy us."

Sachiko's eyes were still, her tongue unable to answer.

"You know this," insisted Rei, bending down so that she was much, much closer. Her deeper voice strolled along Sachiko's neck, making the latter's nerves tingle and shiver in reluctant excitement. "You know. I can see it in your hesitant eyes. Just imagine it - you and I, riding our steeds side-by-side, wind battering our faces, our lances pointed at the same nemesis!"

"I can see it," admitted Sachiko, closing her eyes in relish, "and it is a glorious sight."

"We have no excuse anymore. We must be the architects of Lillian's reunification. You saw my wounds, the power of the weapons held against onee-sama and me. How can we stand on our own? There has been no greater opportunity than this. Think with the heart and mind of a warrior, Sachiko! We could be inaugurators of a new era of Lillian. A reunified Lillian, brought together in the name of fending off an army of men!"

"Yes," said Sachiko desperately, "I know, and I can't help but agree. But will our grande soeurs permit it?"

"We shall see. Thanks to your... reprimand... I've rallied my confidence once more. Have you?" whispered Rei, her lips dangerously close to Sachiko's unsteady mouth. "Or shall I have to resort to desperate measures to convince you?"

Sachiko looked away, resisting the urge to wrap her legs around Rei and clasp her warm hips to her waist. How she wanted to stroke those bandages clinging to Rei's firm, supple skin. How she wanted to pull the Duchess's powerful form down onto her. But, as seductive and nostalgic as their past seemed...

"I've taken a lover."

Rei said nothing, staring down at the Red Baroness fondly.

"I've knighted her. She is more special than anyone else. She is my soeur, my future bouton. I want to start again, Rei. And I feel... I feel Yumi may be the lady who I can trust with my soul." She looked back up at the Yellow Duchess, a hundred thousand sensations and memories passing between them with a single glance. "I'm sorry we could never have our way with each other."

"Please don't push me away in guilt just because of that. Do you feel comfortable with telling me who this Yumi is?"

"Yes. But we cannot return to our past." Sachiko's dark eyes were vulnerable. "However, if you will forgive me enough to let me stand by your side, I might not be so cowardly to flee back into onee-sama's arms again."

Rei's lips were pressing on Sachiko's nose. Not quite her lips, but it was a sumptuous, forgiving kiss all the same. "Say no more. What came to pass before our knighting, has passed. Rise with this Yumi-chan that you adore so deeply. Just promise me you'll stay and stand with me, Rosa Chinensis en bouton. We must speak with our grande soeurs."

* * *

_Another guest bedchamber_

Youko tenderly wiped away the sweat on Eriko's forehead. For now, the danger to the Yellow Rose's life had passed. The peculiar metal ball buried inside her ribs had been removed by the grand doctors, and her wound leeched before being stitched up. Eriko was now strong enough to prop herself up against the felt cushion, sitting and watching the Red Rose pour a draught of red wine into a gilded goblet. She set it on the bedside stool beside Eriko's golden diadem, the symbol of her great office.

"Are you alright, Eriko?" murmured Youko quietly, and there could be no mistaking the fondness in her voice. In this one twist of events, the two women were no longer cutthroat political rivals, but just two individuals who had pined for each other for too long. All they wanted was a chance, and excuse, to speak to each other again. It was unfortunate that their chance had to come in this way, but at least they were together, free for the moment from the trappings of their imperial obligations. This was how Youko felt. What did the recuperating ruler of Foetida think of their disastrous circumstances?

"Thank you, Rosa Chinensis," groaned Eriko, gazing at Youko. She glanced down at the goblet, and reached for it. She took a swig of the hot draught, allowing herself a grateful sigh. "It is not easy to give sanctuary to an enemy of state. My life for concessions of my territory – I owe this to you."

"Enough," said Youko, pressing a tender finger on Eriko's lips. "Speak not about politics now. The circumstances don't warrant the usual protocol. Someone not of either Chinensis or Gigantea has attacked you, apparently with Yoshino-chan's help. For now, we have a good excuse to put aside our ancient conflict." Her eyes shone. "We may even have to send an envoy to Sei, and tell her about everything that's happened. Perhaps Her Majesty should be notified too."

"I'm certain the High Queen has taken precautionary measures with her courtiers," replied Eriko. "I do not know if these invaders from across the seas have surrounded the continent with their ships. But even if they did, they would have to strike through your shires and hamlets, as well as Sei's, to reach Lillian Tower." She smiled weakly. "I don't think Sei will let the enemy reach Her Majesty."

Youko grimaced. "You speak of the White Rose. Perhaps we agree that Foetida and Chinensis should be reunited for the meantime. But for us to even stand a chance, one more woman must rejoin the fold. One more house must be brought into our renewed sisterhood. That most formidable and fickle tsarina."

"Surely the soldiers that defeated us must be pouring into Gigantea territory now," proposed Eriko. "Should we send an ambassador there, even if we can't guarantee her reaching Sei safely?"

"Hm. On second thought, perhaps not. Sei can take care of herself. And she chooses when she wishes to come." Youko smiled. "I don't think she'll be as easy to topple as the men assume."

The door creaked open, and their petite soeurs stepped in. Rei's bandages had been concealed by a new set of clothes and a lean suit of armour that hugged her physique. Sachiko had chosen it personally for her. The boutons bowed, and Eriko nodded. "You have my gratitude, Red Baroness. I am in the Chinensis House's debt."

"This isn't the time for petty squabbling, and I'm confident onee-sama would say the same. Now, these… metal pellets," said Sachiko, moving forward. She opened her right hand, and nestled in her palm was one of the silver balls that the surgeons had extracted from Rei's body. "It looks harmless. But what are these wounds? I have never seen them before. No clan has weapons that would inflict such small but deep injuries."

"I cannot describe it," said Rei, shaking her head. "It simply exploded from the barrel of that weapon, hurtling at me like an arrow animated by black magic. But I know that this is far from supernatural. Its science is brutal and lethal. It broke through my plate armour. We must find a way to resist it, and..." She grimaced. "It pains a knight's integrity to utter this, but if we cannot resist these weapons, we must acquire them for ourselves."

"Where did these men come from?" asked Youko grimly. "What do they want with our great houses? Do they want to force concessions from Her Majesty? For centuries, we've been shut away from all else, focused inwardly on our civil wars. We never invaded anyone. Who would bear a grudge against any of us Roses, or the High Queen herself?"

"You forget, Your Highness, that the Rose saints also came to this continent from across the snowy seas. Many hundreds of years may have passed, but the world is bigger than Lillian," came Yumi's voice. The women turned around to see the brown-haired girl bowing before them. "Forgive me, onee-sama. May I speak?"

"I didn't approve of you interrupting onee-sama so unexpectedly," said Sachiko tentatively, "but go on..."

"Who are you, little girl?" said Eriko, her eyes narrowing, her patience not so inexhaustible. "Explain yourself."

"This my new petite soeur, Fukuzawa Yumi. Be not suspicious, Rosa Foetida," said Rosa Chinensis en bouton, hiding her pride in a modest gesture towards Yumi. "My apprentice in the noble way of sister love, and my great warrior squire. My apologies for the short introductions, but the urgent circumstances allow little more."

Yumi's eyes met Rei's, and Rei also gave a short bow, recognizing at once Yumi's sincerity. Then Yumi looked back at Youko, bowing too. "These boys and men are from the Republic of Hanadera - "

"Republic?" asked Rei, brow rising. "What does that mean?"

Yumi smiled grimly. "A republic is a kingdom... no, that is precisely what it is not. A republic is a state where royalty and nobility have been purged, replaced by leaders chosen by popularity alone. In other words, a realm where we - onee-sama, Rosa Chinensis, Rosa Foetida, and all others - would be nothing more than common serfs."

Sachiko, Rei, Eriko, and Youko stared at each other in bewildered silence. It was almost impossible to believe. What could such a realm look like?

"No... High Queen? No clans?" Rei scratched her head. "How would the subjects of Hanadera... _exist_?"

"These Hanaderians have used Rosa Foetida's inter-clan conflict to gain a foothold in this realm. They lured Yoshino-san with promises of revolution. They allowed Yoshino-san to be the nominal leader of her knights." Yumi's kind eyes flashed. "And now they've taken Foetida Palace for their main stronghold of attack. We must expect our future conflicts with them to emanate from there."

"How do you know so much, Fukuzawa Yumi?" said Eriko. "We don't even know who those men were, but you call them Hanaderians?"

"I assure you, great Roses, that their intentions are not peaceful. Having said that, their invasion and domination of these isles is not simply the consequence of the male thirst for violence. No, there is a very systematic logic to their colonization. They have come for one objective alone."

"You haven't answered me," said Eriko sharply. "How do you know so much about this new foe? Forgive my suspicion, but I find it... difficult to believe you were simply catapulted into Sachiko-chan's arms as her squire, and now we are under a devastating onslaught from warriors with far superior weapons to ours!"

"Of course, Rosa Foetida. And onee-sama. You wanted me to tell you everything, to be honest when the time called for it. And so I indeed will tell you everything."

Yumi's eyes glimmered unflinchingly, as brave and calm as when she first stood naked before Sachiko, then only a slave at her mercy.

"The leader, the President of this Hanadera Republic, is my brother. His name is Fukuzawa Yuki."

Youko glanced worriedly at Eriko, their flickering expressions betraying their incredulity. Rei stared at the Red Baroness, shaken and unnerved. "Sachiko! What's going on?"

"Yumi!" gasped the Red Baroness. Her cool expression had twisted into one of panicked delirium at Yumi's words. "How can this be? How could you not have told me earlier? You have relations with our enemy? How can I... " She wanted to lean against something, to steady herself, but there was nothing to hold on to, and she didn't want to collapse in plain sight of her grande soeur. Her throat dry, she could only mutter out, "I want to trust you because I love you. I withheld my questions about you for so long. I gave myself to you, lifted you from serfdom, made you my squire! _Knighted_ you!" Her voice rose into a choked scream, no longer caring about Eriko's pained expression, nor of Youko's sorrowful grimace. "Do you understand? _I could have given nothing more precious to you than my rosary_! And now you turn around and tell me I've made a _noblewoman_ out of the sibling of our foe?"

"My brother has only made his move now," said Yumi, her eyes fearful for the first time. A chill ran down Sachiko's spine, even though the composed Yumi was still speaking calmly. "I knew he would attack Lillian, but only when he knew where I was. It was foretold Lillian would be our battleground. It always was."

"Why? Why would he send an entire army against you? Against us? What do you mean, foretold?" sputtered Sachiko, her heart pounding loudly in her ears. She grabbed Yumi's shoulders, shaking her in despair as the others stared at the couple. "What have you brought upon us? Upon me?"

Yumi smiled sadly, looking away, unable to meet Sachiko's helpless, pleading gaze.

"My brother wishes to kill me, onee-sama," she replied plainly.

* * *

_The northern wastelands_

The armies of Gigantea had already fallen, their horses and fur-armoured boyars scattered across a barren snowscape of death.

The family's elite nobles were no match for the matchlocks and cannons of the shock troops that stormed the countryside and penetrated deep into the proud fort of Gigantea Palace. All around the proud spires of the fortress were the dotted infernos of burning villages. Grey-uniformed men and their horses and cannons cut their way across the cold landscape, leaving behind an endless trail of slave corpses. The Gigantea serfs' chaotic charges were completely useless against the well-disciplined formations of the uniformed, matchlock-wielding army.

Ebony-haired Kobayashi Masamune, second-in-command only to Yuki himself, led the charge with Arisugawa Kintarou, a tender-faced boy who looked more like an eunuch than a Hanadera Council member. The Yakushiji twins were more than a match for the impoverished, starving women, their physical brawn easily sufficient for brutalizing the crying girls that folded before their towering might. Their bayonets impaled row after row, line after line of human shields that the White Rose _ordered_ to block the enemy. Tomomitsu and Akimitsu were only matched by the overpowering Takada Magane, his musket's bayonet burying itself in the stomachs of the bawling, thin girl-soldiers who could barely push back, let alone resist the pellets that punctured their bones and organs. Like flies, the poorly armed, poorly fed female serfs fell before the relentless march of the Hanaderian war machine.

In a matter of less than a week, the impoverished villages around Gigantea Palace were razed to the ground, though there wasn't much to be razed in the first place. The looming portcullis of the Gigantea family stood before them, leading to a vast courtyard surrounded by towering stone walls and a gigantic basilica behind the fort. After wiping out several dozen fiefdoms that Satou Sei lorded over, the endgame was surely near. There were barely any peasants left to defend their owner. The snow and ice of the Gigantea heartland reeked of its rotting subjects, and the smoky fragrance of foreign gunpowder.

"Storm the castle! Storm the castle!" came the triumphant roar from the formations of musketeers. "Pull the White Rose from her high seat! Pull her by the hair! Slit her throat!"

"First it was Foetida Palace. Now Gigantea's fortress belongs to President Yuki!" crowed Magane, firing his own arquebus at one of the remaining cloaked boyars. The latter crumpled to the snowy ground, a metal ball lodged in her chest. She had joined one of the dozens of corpse piles the Hanaderians were heaping together. These fly-infested hills of dead women outside the castle would be burned for fuel and lamplight. And they would serve as an example to the remaining nobles of the Lillian Kingdom. Magane turned to his triumphant soldiers. "We of the Hanadera Council will find the White Rose ourselves. She's certainly cowering in her fortress somewhere. In the meantime, prepare the cannons and siege. Pitch camp around here and flush out any remaining boyars or peasant-women. We should be finished with Satou Sei in good time!"

The affirmative roar indicated that it was only a matter of time before the White Rose, and all who stood with her, were toppled from their lofty thrones.

* * *

There were no defenders inside the dark, dank hallways of the castle. The Hanadera Council's members simply marched with impunity in the direction of the throneroom. They stood before the door that blocked their way, admiring its ornate art of a mysterious snake that seemed to wound itself around a giant tree. "Yuki-kun should be pleased! At this rate, we'll be going home early!" exclaimed Magane.

"When Yuki can find his sister," said the bookish Masamune grimly. Not much of a soldier, he adjusted his large, round spectacles. "When he can finally reunite with Yumi-san, we can all go home."

"Indeed! That's pretty much all he wants. He'll stop at nothing to root her out. After all, he was the one who was worried sick over her body, eh?" said Magane, his baritone voice now more subdued. "Insisting that it's possessed by three malevolent spirits."

"Not so much possessed, but becoming an actual receptacle. And if the President and Chancellor Kashiwagi are right, we're not simply hunting demons. They told us our enemies are goddesses. Prime celestials of fabled legend." Kintarou's face was unsmiling. "According to the runic inscriptions, recorded prophecies, and bard songs that Yuki-san studied, the Rose saints dwelled in the Hall of Heroines after their deaths, but would return. However, they need an innocent soul to vacate its body for their residence." A bead of cold sweat suddenly ran down his face. "Goddesses from Valhalla, having fallen from their heavenly afterlife, reborn in a girl's shell. One pure and kind enough to hold all their bloodlust and violence. No one - neither Hanadera, nor the Houses of Lillian - know what will happen when these celestials manifest."

"But we certainly know that wherever the goddesses fell, they would surely wish to return to their homeland," said Masamune, nodding gravely. "That's why Yuki and Kashiwagi-san decided on a joint attack on these accursed isles."

"Yes, indeed. Understandably, Yuki-san despairs of recovering his sister, but will be damned if he lets the Rose saints' spirits eat up her rotting body. If Yumi-san was my sister, I'd send an army after her as well," said Kintarou.

"Rose saints? The heroines of old? I read about them when we were children," said Magane, scratching his head. "I thought Lillian's creation myth and its characters were all fairytales."

"Yes, they are," said Kintarou grimly. "But you forget. We're already _in_ the land of fairytales."

The Yakushiji twins positioned themselves before the grand old doors to the throneroom. "Are we ready?" they asked in unison.

"Do it," said Kintarou.

With a great shoulder charge, the hefty twins hurled themselves at the wood and forced the locks to buckle. Gathering themselves, they crashed against the door again, and again, until it began to splinter, its hinges creaking in surrender. With two mighty kicks, the Yakushiji brothers' boots bashed open the door at last, and it gave way, swinging limply to reveal a yawning room submerged in darkness. The Hanadera Council members raised their muskets and pistols, pointing into the darkness.

A relaxed voice echoed around the throneroom, catching them off-guard. Kintarou jumped at it. "Welcome to my home, intruders."

Slowly, slowly, a funnel of light from the sky shone on the caped woman sitting on the stone throne. Her white diadem shone in the sunbeam. Her hands crossed, she observed the council members as they stared in silent disbelief at the oversized, black cat that slept beside her throne. This immense cat was at least ten feet high and even longer, its massive, furry head tucked cosily close to its gargantuan body as it purred quietly to itself.

"What - what is that?" squeaked Kintarou, stepping back as the beast's impressive ears twitched.

"A cat. A ship-sized cat," muttered Masamune, hardly daring to believe the impossible sight. "We've truly come ashore the land of fairytales."

"We have questions, Tsarina, and you will answer them if you understand your situation," barked Magane, raising his arquebus. "Your armies were nothing. Even your so-called elite boyars couldn't delay us. Now you might have this beast with you, but it's not going to change your sorry fate."

Masamune stepped forward, notably. "What do you know about the runic prophecies of the Rose saints, Rosa Gigantea? You are the spiritual heir of Saint Gigantea herself. Surely you, and the other incumbent Roses, would have something in your castle archives and dark libraries."

"Tell me, uninvited guests..." Sei did not rise from her throne, but peered at the men, sitting back. "Have you ever heard of the old story? The legend of the god that tried to lift the great cat?"

"What... what are you talking about?" cried Magane. "You're talking rubbish. We won't let you buy time! Where is the woman called Fukuzawa Yumi?"

Sei shook her head. "No, no, no. I'm doing anything but buying time. You see, they say the god of thunder tried to lift up a giant cat in order to win a bet against his enemy, the king of the giants. That giant's name was Utgarda-Loki. Yet to the divine hero's shock, even his full strength could barely lift a single paw of the cat's. But that was already an impressive feat. Because unbeknownst to him..."

Sei's grey eyes sparkled and twinkled almost childishly, as if she enjoyed recounting this fable. "This cat was the World Serpent, disguised by Utgarda-Loki to deceive the thunder god."

"World Serpent?" whispered Kintarou.

Magane let out an incredulous, rattled bark of laughter. "An old legend to scare the little ones. Do you think we of Hanadera believe in such superstition? Our black ships sail the world, colonizing unknown lands year by year. Your kind haven't even left these isles in past few centuries. Do you think we'll be cowed by old wives' tales?"

But Masamune was not laughing. His big eyes widened further behind his ornate spectacles. "I don't think she's joking," he blurted, staring up at the humongous, sinister feline. It was stirring, and Kintarou jumped again when it began to yawn quietly. The Council members could see the bottomless abyss of its throat behind a pair of fangs taller than Magane himself. He and his friends stared at the slumbering, gargantuan puss in newly discovered trepidation. Was it possible - ?

"Shoot that monster! Shoot the White Rose!" shrieked Kintarou suddenly, his stuttering, high voice infected with a primal terror. "I don't think she's bluffing. Slay that demonic cat! Stop her before she - "

Sei slowly opened her mouth again, rolling back her tongue in relish, growling out that dread name.

"_GORONTA_!" she boomed.

At her voice, the giant cat's eye slowly, but menacingly, opened. It took several petrifying moments, but the moment Goronta's eyelid began to slowly slide upwards, revealing a fickle, black pupil that looked more reptilian than mammalian, the council members knew they were doomed. The swirling iris and slitted pupil glinted hungrily, and Sei slowly got up as the young men's screams began to fill the hall. "I'm so glorious, I've tamed the _spawn of a god_ and kept her to myself," crowed Rosa Gigantea, standing to her full height as Goronta's purrs mingled with the futile explosions of muskets and pistols, and the subsequent crunching of bones, flesh and weapons. The screams, weeping, and bawling disappeared past Goronta's ravenous jowls and slid down her throat. "Why do you think my miserable serfs never rose in rebellion against me? Why do you think the Foetida and Chinensis clans fear and respect me so?"

The White Rose grinned arrogantly, watching with vicious pride as her pet licked her bloodstained jowls. With a single command, the mythic World Serpent of Lillian's midgard had been unleashed on the invaders of Hanadera. Goronta purred contentedly as Shimako stepped out from behind Sei's throne. She held her two axes tighter. "They've overrun and surrounded this hill fort with siege weapons. Our villages are occupied by these men," said the White Princess. "We cannot hold this castle. Onee-sama, we may have to flee and rally anyone who remains."

"Never mind that!" declared Sei, dusting her opulent sleeve and watching Goronta hack out the wet bones and skulls of the Yakushiji twins. The World Serpent spat out the skeletal remains onto the ground. _Clack, clack_. The horrific scuffle was over as quickly as it had started. "Fighting a forest fire with droplets of dew is futile. But the armies of these assailants will certainly be plunged into chaos for a few days, since Goronta has just eaten most of their leadership. That should give our three houses some time to regroup and think of a counterattack. But everything else has been lost to these men. I will join with Chinensis and Foetida. We will lend our strength of three to their strength of thousands. Only then can we repulse these new enemies _and_ find where the Rose saints are incarnating." She smiled sadly. "I don't want things between our three houses to end like this, either."

"You knew this day would come," said Shimako in realization. "You know about the prime Roses' prophesied fall from Valhalla."

"Of course. The tales even record that they foretold their own return. I don't know where in Lillian our ancestors have fallen. Nor do I know their intentions. Spirits should stay in the afterlife, if you ask me," replied Sei, as Goronta let out an obedient _meow_. The great cat let out a quiet hack, and the castle's walls audibly shook. "But these Hanaderians have no business interfering with our ancient myths. None. They can bluster and wave their arms before the goddesses of Valhalla all they want. But only _we_ can face up to our prophesied destiny. These men, whatever their intentions, will die as certainly as we'll meet our judgement before our ancestral Roses." Sei pursed her lips. "Will you walk with me, Shimako? Will you follow me into the depths of Jotunheim and Muspelheim, into ice and fire, into ecstatic self-destruction amidst a sea of thorns and dead men's nails?"

Shimako bowed her head, her expressionless face masking the undivided devotion she felt for her grande soeur. "Without question, onee-sama."

"Let's mop up the enemies barricading us in. I think they're in for a nice surprise. Send all our remaining boyars to keep Shiori safe. All I need is you, Shimako. You and Goronta. We'll be the ones to sound the horn of twilight."

Smiling, Rosa Gigantea drew her sword - a shimmering, frosty, double-edged blade housed in a hilt of gold and pearls, as bright as snow in daylight.

"Let's go."

* * *

**NEXT ACT: THE ****GIGANTEA FAMILY UNLEASHED.**

**THREE HOUSES AS ONE.**

** YUMI'S TRAGIC DESTINY.**


	5. Yumi's Fimbulwinter

**- WARS OF THE ROSES -**

* * *

Hi and thanks for checking out Wars of the Roses again. My apologies for disappearing off for a short time. It's been a busy month with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and an even busier time at work, plus some upheavals in my personal life that resemble Sei's quirky relationships with the girls that love her... (I'm not Sei, she is... XO). I've got a lot of stories I'm reading to catch up with. Aaaaaanyway! Thank you for any feedback and I hope you enjoy Act V of this Norse/medieval-themed world of Lillian.

The war between the Kingdom of Lillian and the United States of Hanadera is about to be joined. The scales have been rebalanced somewhat in the Kingdom's favour by the entry of the Gigantea clan on the side of its old enemies, Chinensis and Foetida. As the shadow of Goronta, the World Serpent in the form of a massive, magical cat, falls over the armies of Hanadera, Sachiko's struggle with Yumi's mysterious identity deepens. Fear has crept into her heart ever since that distant day Yumi refused to tell her where she came from. And now, with the crushing revelation that the leader of the Hanaderians is Yumi's very brother, the Red Baroness cannot help but feel the Lillian Kingdom is facing something much more dangerous than a technologically superior invasion.

Yuki's onslaught is but prelude. The true epicentre of the terror is within shy, sweet Yumi herself. Saint Chinensis, Saint Foetida, and Saint Gigantea: the terrifying founders of Lillian are here, tied to Yumi's life and death, forever.

* * *

**- Act V -**

**- Yumi's Fimbulwinter -**

* * *

_How many weeks had it been? How many months, how many days of Freya lost to the count of time since she had knighted her?_

_She slowly lowered the glittering sword under the yawning abbey's arches and vaults. Its flat blade rested gently on a genuflecting girl with pigtails._

_"In the name of the Virgin, the great spirits of pagan times, and the Rose saints, founders of our Kingdom. Do you swear fealty to me, Fukuzawa Yumi?" asked Sachiko, decked in her full royal Baroness's crimson felt attire._

_Enfolded in rich dark green and white fur, Yumi kept her eyes shut. Her left knee felt sore as it pressed against the cool stone floor, but she ignored the stiffness. "On my life."_

_"Do you swear undying loyalty to the House of Chinensis and her Rose most high, Mizuno Youko?"_

_"I humbly do."_

_Sachiko raised a brow. "It's _truthfully_, not humbly," she whispered between her teeth. "Did you not practice?"_

_Yumi blushed, and quickly corrected herself as she giggled nervously. Sachiko smiled forgivingly. Well, nothing was ever perfect. Clearly, despite Yumi's meticulous memorization of the knighting ritual's script, her nervousness had undone some of the effort. "I truthfully do."_

_"Serve me," said Sachiko, concluding the choreographed session. "Love me, and die for me. Serve Lillian. Sacrifice everything!"_

_"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Yumi to all three, that one word being the closing of the time-honoured custom. "Amen!"_

_Sachiko's hand moved slightly, tapping Yumi's shoulder gently with the sword. "Amen. Arise, soeur knight. Lady Yumi Fukuzawa of Chinensis, petite soeur of Rosa Chinensis en bouton."_

_Yumi slowly raised her head, delighted eyes meeting the satisfied pupils of Sachiko. _

_"And that's that," whispered Sachiko, smiling. She raised her free hand, and within it was her rosary and the glimmering cross. "It's over. Stand."_

_Yumi obediently lifted her bent knee, closing her eyes again as Sachiko's arms stretched out, rosary slowly descending around the new squire's head and neck..._

_One crucifix to bind them together, always, until the end of time._

* * *

Yumi screamed and cried, her clenched fists beating lightly on Sachiko's shoulders as the Baroness roughly carried her petite soeur into her bedchambers. She resisted, resisted desperately - but Sachiko's hands were pulling her hair, painfully, carelessly, mercilessly, and no matter how she fought back, the bouton's grip only grew more implacable. "Please, onee-sama," she begged, eyes scrunched up at the stinging pain as she felt Sachiko's cruel fingers clutching her tresses. "Where are you taking me?"

"Where it all began, you liar."

The door to the Red Baroness's room boomed open. With a contemptuous toss, Yumi felt herself thrown onto Sachiko's bed like a disappointing rag doll, her noblewoman's garments immediately torn apart and away from her trembling body. "Have mercy, onee-sama," she whimpered, as Sachiko's enraged hand pressed against her mouth, with a free hand still working humiliatingly away at her clothes. Sachiko's beautiful face was twisted in rage, fury as hot as the flames of Muspelheim. Her hands tore away at Yumi's fur and felt, the very clothes of high-ranking nobility she had bestowed on her. And now, she was dismissing them away from Yumi's red, stinging, sore, body. Yumi screamed, terror and lust and passion pounding in her heart, and she tried to fight back, to resist Sachiko's perfect hands. But it was no use. Onee-sama was overpowering her with brutal kisses, gripping her body, lightning coursing through her touch.

She couldn't escape.

They had pitched camp near the fiercely contested Castle Albion, a crucial chokepoint that the three houses had fought over many times in the past. Her tent was sparse compared to her bedchamber in Chinensis Palace. She was supposed to be planning a strategy for the coming battle with Rei and her new Foetida allies, but for now she had one concern. "I have waited long enough for you to tell me who you truly are! I don't know why I have been so lenient thus far. You, the sister of our invaders' leader? Just how much do you know and why?"

Sachiko ran her hand over Yumi's neck, gently clasping her fingers around the younger girl's throat. Yumi's eyes widened as Sachiko's hand began to close around her - no, it didn't hurt - yes, actually, it did somewhat, but she was powerless to fight back regardless, staring up at the Red Baroness helplessly as the latter tore aside her own clothes, pressing down on her squire-slave and having her lordly way with her. Her legs and curled toes stroked Sachiko's in the wild throes of pain and pleasure. "Onee-sama! Please, I will do anything you command," bawled Yumi hysterically, bucking powerlessly as Sachiko pinned her down, their hot skin touching, inflaming and moistening at each other's warmth. "Please... just a little gentler..."

"Tell me who you are! Now," snarled Rosa Chinensis en bouton as she descended, her lips biting angrily on Yumi's neck. "Or I will really lose my temper. No one is immune to the wrath of the Red Baroness. Not even you," she declared, voice suddenly growing softer, as her teeth nipped Yumi's shoulder lightly, if reproachfully. Stilled, Yumi moaned, unable to fight back. "You owe me an explanation, Yumi," demanded Sachiko quietly, her fingers eliciting another warm mew from the hapless girl. Her caresses were perfect, careful, aimed with a deadly, heart-killing precision and dexterity. How could Yumi possibly resist her? "I have, contrary to my rank and authority, kept quiet about your silence for far longer than is healthy. I shut away my questions about you, my petite soeur, because I wanted to see your satisfied smile in this palace. But now is the time you repay me for my kindness." Her eyes shone. "Please, now is the time. When your grande soeur is as desperate as this, surely you will consent?"

Yumi looked at Sachiko, and there it was once again, that beautiful, fearless expression. "I understand, onee-sama," she said quietly, wrapping her limbs around her and pulling her close. She kissed her. "Come closer. I'll tell you everything. All shall be revealed. And I will tell you why my brother has come to where I go."

But Sachiko could never have anticipated the incredible, unbelievable, unthinkable words about to pass from her squire's lips.

"The Rose saints of myth have made me theirs."

"What?" breathed Sachiko. "For the last time, stop speaking in riddles!"

"I'm not." Yumi's eyes told the truth. "I was selected, not by my family, but by the powers above. A human sacrifice to placate the wrathful hunger of bloodthirsty spirits. My brother has come to sweep across Lillian, but only so he can come to me, to kill me, to free me. Because my body is no longer completely my own. Your realm... this grey and green land... it will endure, and survive the wrath of my brother's love. You're not his greatest enemy."

Sachiko shook her head, a crushing, dispiriting sense of foreboding washing over her. "No. No, no, no. What nonsense is this? The prime Roses we all revere? Goddesses fallen from the Hall of Heroines?"

"Their spirits have fallen from the afterlife of Valhalla, choosing my flesh to dwell within," whispered Yumi, her lips caressing her mistress's ear. "They're eating my organs as I speak, killing me from within. I can feel these deified women of war, gnawing away at my vessels and marrow. My very thoughts. But I will gladly sacrifice my soul for their incarnation if it means protecting you. Yes! They have promised me... they won't devour you like they have me. I don't know if they will keep their promise. But they were going to come. I swear it." Yumi sighed, a single tear trickling down her cheek. "But I loved you before I met you. I told you that already, when you first brought me to your room as a whore and a slave. I love you in this world, in all worlds. Why else would I beg the goddesses to at least allow me the pleasure of seeing you first, even if you never cared to meet or know me?"

"You lie! You're toying with me. I will punish you for mocking my heart like this!" shrieked Sachiko, raising a hysterical palm to slap Yumi -

Azure and turquoise light, the luminance of the northern sky, ignited in Yumi's irises. Sachiko gasped, as her petite soeur - the girl who swore to adore her forever - grabbed her arm with a superhuman strength. Her wrist began to crack under the iron grip of her own squire, bones audibly bruising and creaking. Stunned, the writhing Sachiko reeled back. She screamed in blank pain as Yumi slowly rose from the bed, defying what was supposed to be Sachiko's greater strength, and spoke, her rasping throat growling an old, guttural tongue long forgotten. The banshee-like, primitive dialect chilled the shivering, squirming Red bouton to the bone.

"_Stay your hand, little girl_."

That voice - no, those voices of three long-dead women - did not belong to Yumi!

The cold glow of snow and water in Yumi's eyes suddenly dissipated, and she roughly shoved Sachiko away, releasing her. The Baroness flew back, scrambling off the bed and staggering away, terrified and distraught. "No!" screamed Yumi suddenly, clutching her head. "Why... why are you looking at me like that?" she whimpered, glancing up at the panting Rosa Chinensis en bouton, who was cowering amidst the echo of the shrieking voices. "What have I done to you, onee-sama?" whispered Yumi. "Don't they give me more time? Have they already... begun to eat my brain?"

"It has begun," realized Sachiko in horror. She raised her arm, forced in the face of the manifesting goddesses, to take in Yumi's slow, agonizing death. "Yumi. If you're really telling the truth... If you're really to be believed..." She stared at the shaking petite soeur. "The prime Roses seem to be gnawing away at you. Your body. Your mind. Your soul."

Yumi smiled sadly, and her silence meant that Sachiko had deduced everything too correctly. "Yes, but if that means I may spend my final weeks with you, it will be a mercy and a blessing," she finally said, after several hesitant moments.

Sachiko couldn't cry. She couldn't weep. All she felt was anger, hatred, an intense revulsion for the very women that had founded the glorious Kingdom of Lillian. Suddenly, she regretted everything she had said to Yumi. Shy, timid Yumi. Helpless, struggling Yumi. No. None of that. Yumi was holding a trinity of vengeful spirits inside her. What could be braver than that? "No. No, this cannot be. I won't let you die!"

"It's too late," whispered Yumi. She drew close again and took Sachiko's trembling, bruised hand. It was slightly swollen and purple. She cradled Sachiko's taller body in her embrace. "I'm sorry. Sorry for hurting you, and sorry for inflicting this grief on you. Just when you thought your heart could have found rest and repose in me..."

Sachiko thought her fractured wrist would hurt more, but she could barely feel it.

The throbbing pain was coming from somewhere else, somewhere deep, deep within.

* * *

Grey skies reigned with the occasional shaft of sunlight from the heavens. It was midday, and the Hanaderian troops hadn't arrived yet on the green slopes and hills surrounding the stone fort of Castle Albion. But three grand armies of the House of Chinensis already awaited the inevitable coming of the republic's regiments. Thousands of noblewomen, peeresses of the realm, clad in glimmering silver and metal, clutching lances that seemed to stab the blue sky. No faction could hope to seize the Lillian heartland without holding this fort of stone. Standing with the Chinensis knights was an unusual guest - the commander of the Foetida House's army, the exiled Rosa Foetida en bouton, who had more or less recovered from the devastating rout she had suffered at Yuki's hands. "Where will they come from?" she muttered, encased in her gloriously refitted suit of armour. With her old set punctured and rendered useless by the muskets and arquebuses that had been unleashed on her that fateful day when Yoshino rebelled against Eriko, Sachiko had commissioned blacksmiths to create a sleeker, nimbler, thinner alternative. "I might have been caught off-guard last time, and I paid a dear price for it by being run out of my own castle. But now my blood courses with desire for vengeance."

"It feels strange," said Sachiko dully, her bruised wrist and hand. Her petite soeur was not by her side. Her voice sounded blunted from the incident the night before. She hadn't slept, not even after she had cradled Yumi to slumber and lain beside her as their passion cooled. "You must have felt like me when Yoshino betrayed you."

"This is not the time to talk about such things," urged Rei, although her troubled face betrayed her agreement with Sachiko's sentiments. "After everything she's told us, you must have many questions about Yumi-chan now. Foetida Palace has already fallen into Hanaderian hands. They were cunning enough strike directly at our heartland, using Yoshino as a catapult into the imperialist ambitions. Usually, we have led great armies against each other to take each other's hill forts and villages, but Hanadera has allowed Yoshino to take over our house's banners."

Sachiko clenched her fist. "Low-handed fools."

"Low-handed they may be, but the truth is that the Hanaderians have swept over our fiefdoms," said Rei darkly. "Without us to lead a counterattack, our meagre, overstretched knights will simply fold before their onslaught, especially with these weapons of theirs. I wouldn't be surprised if they have taken our brave women captive and..." She shuddered. "Vermin."

Sachiko hissed in disbelief. "They will not stoop to such despicable depravity. Even if they _are_ our enemies! Not against our eminent nobles!"

"You forget, Sachiko - these men do not believe in nobility. But perhaps you're right. Are they here to pillage and rape our lands and people? Or do they have a hidden agenda as they sweep across this continent? We simply don't know." Rei's eyes narrowed. "Can you hear that rumble?"

"That distant but nearing thunder?" muttered Sachiko. "Yes."

They were here. The Hanaderians had arrived, line upon line of grey-uniformed soldiers taking up position at the hill across to them. Across the sprawling green they arrived - almost suddenly, abruptly, like the tense rainstorms that always visited the grey continent. But they had come with great yawning barrels of ebony, rolled along the crushed grass by burly, moustached soldiers. "What in the nine worlds are those monstrosities?" whispered Sachiko, sensing the unease of the knights behind her.

Rei grimaced. "A spy told me they were called 'cannons'. I've already taken the liberty to share my concerns with your troops."

"Good. I entrust them to you, since you have yet to recover your troops from Yoshino-chan." Sachiko steered her armoured horse around, its hooves clomping impatiently on the grass. "Prepare to sacrifice yourselves this day, for the enemy is protected by formidable firearms. We must trade ten lives for one of theirs, a hundred arrows for one of their cannons. Hold this fort and these grassy plains! If they take Castle Albion, the heartland of Lillian Palace itself and Her Majesty will be in danger." Sachiko steered her horse back to face the amassing ocean of grey and black. "I will lead the charge with Rei!"

The knights shouted out a brave warcry, thrusting up their lances and spears. Sachiko glanced at Rei nervously, who smiled in return.

"Remember," whispered the Yellow Duchess, "Courage isn't the absence of fear, but its defeat."

For some reason, as Sachiko pressed her legs against her horse, spurring it on, she felt comforted by those words. Perhaps Rei was right, and they really stood no chance against Fukuzawa Yuki's regiments. But for the first time in her violent life, Sachiko no longer felt worried about her own life.

Her heart was preoccupied with Yumi's predicament, and how she could be saved.

* * *

First blood was drawn by a row of powerful cannons - a challenge to the age-old supremacy of Lillian's three ancient houses. As several dozen noblewomen felt their armour and guts exploding in a confused haze of blood, shattered organs and sundered metal, the mighty _boom_ of the Hanaderian cannons signalled the end of that age. "Charge! Ride bravely, fear not the firestorm!" roared Rei, undaunted by the cannonballs that were splattered with her women's brains and gore. She pointed her sword at the enemy. "Ride with me!" She and Rosa Chinensis en bouton led the charge, and the thunder behind them replaced the bodies of their comrades. It was a cacophony of bloodlust-charged screams in tandem with the thousands of hooves pummelling the ground. Lances were now raised and pointed at the crowd of Hanaderians, their shapes and colours. A dozen flags of vermillion billowed loudly above the Chinensis sea of silver and steeds' manes, but soon the marching regiments of grey coats and trousers and tar-black boots had run in front of the cannons, lining in perfect formation.

They raised their arquebuses and muskets.

A Hanaderian man with a tall black helm raised his sabre - a curved sword unknown to these isles.

Sachiko was prepared. Rei had told her all about their tactics. She gave a shout, and the elite women behind her suddenly veered to her right and left flanks, giving her space to manoeuvre. As the order to fire was bellowed out, and several dozen Chinensis warriors and their horses toppled to the ground, Sachiko and her immediate subordinates braced their horses and urged them onward. Time became as quick as their thumping hearts as their lances and horses smashed into the bayonets and bodies of the men, colliding with flesh and metal. The muskets fired again, and several more choking women fell, their armour inadequate protection against the projectiles stabbing into them. Their corpses hampered the knightly charge, and the Chinensis formation was growing increasingly chaotic and demoralized. Steeds whinnied for their lost mistresses, and other downed women could not get up in time to survive the enemy's blades. Many of the Hanaderians had already drawn their own curved swords, and their lighter uniforms let them move quicker, too. "We can't get close to them without sacrificing our sisters," cried one of the knights, as they finally closed the distance and began to tussle with the Hanaderian bayonets. Many had already lost their lives so that they could get close to the men.

"This was what I warned you about. Distract them! Stop holding back and fire the arrows!" barked Sachiko, now in the midst of the regiments of Hanaderians. "Return their pressure!" At her shout, a hail of the projectiles were released from the tight bows of Chinensis archers, and they rained down around her, the falling victims of the poisoned arrowtips buying her some precious time. A steel pellet pierced into her horse's side, and with a mighty fling, her lithe body was hurled off. Rei's steed galloped past the struggling Baroness, and the Yellow Duchess threw herself at the throng of marksmen, determined that they not get the same chance to surprise her as they did in Foetida Castle. Her descending form crushed a struggling boy underneath her armour. Scrambling up, she severed a Hanaderian's torso from his waist and swung her greatsword in a great arc that split open the bodies of two more. But the republic's musketeers advanced unflinchingly, closing ranks, encircling the commanders, determined to finish them. Rei whipped around, parrying a stab from a bayonet and decapitating its owner. She was one of the few in her entourage still standing. Only her superb skill, endurance, and newly-fitted armour prevented her from falling as quickly as her subordinates. Sachiko also glanced around, desperate but powerless as more of her warriors fell before the unrelenting, merciless firepower of the muskets pointed at them. The noblewomen's backs pressed against each other. "Die with me, Rei," demanded Red Baroness, blood flowing down her face.

"You're wounded," blurted Rei, ever the caring one.

But the heiresses were not to die together yet.

A hail of flaming arrows descended upon the shocked musketeers, piercing into their wriggling, screaming bodies. Rei and Sachiko glanced back behind them, beyond their comrades' corpses, to catch sight of their saviours on the slope. Up high were raised two billowing banners, on which were sown beautiful red and yellow flowers. At the head were Rosa Chinensis and Rosa Foetida, decked in their full armour and regalia, shimmering jarl's attire that put the finest silk and fur to shame.

"I don't think I've ever fought by your side before," smirked Eriko. "Nor have our grande soeurs before us, or the soeurs before them."

"Then may we do so many more times, to make up for all that we've lost," said Youko, as the knights behind her bellowed in bloodlust. Her horse reared its hind legs, whinnying, and Youko shouted out a single command to charge. It was lost in the collective roar of Youko's knights. The thundering cavalry aimed their lances at the confused formations of men, and down the gentle hill the cavalry reinforcements thundered, a bristling, galloping porcupine of spears, pikes, and halberds pointed directly at the disoriented, panicking Hanaderians. The bristling wall of deadly metal pierced into dozens and dozens of grey cloth and flesh, impaling the young men and boys on their tips, running them through, bloodied horses crashing into coughing, wheezing Hanaderians and trampling over them, twisting and deforming their bodies, breaking their bones, crushing their skulls.

"At last," smiled Rei, breathing heavily. There was not much time to exult, however. The punctured ranks of the Hanaderians were quickly being refilled by knights of the Foetida House, and among them was a dark-haired girl with long braids, whose yellow, furred coat shone in the afternoon light.

Her eyes met Rei's surprised irises.

"Hello," said Rei quietly, and her love and affection and tenderness was palpable through that one simple word.

The Foetida knights had amassed around Yoshino's diminutive form, faces hidden behind their visors, watching their two leaders' reunion closely. The Foetida banner's bright colours clashed with the blood-red standard of the Chinensis flag and that of their enemy's, the mournful grey stripes of the Hanadera Republic. "Yoshino," pleaded the Yellow Duchess. "Are you really going to kill me here? Look at us. We've reunited. This was what you wanted, wasn't it? And it was all thanks to you."

Yoshino's eyes glimmered. "And you've forgiven me. A superhuman act of pardon."

"No, Yoshino. Forgiving you is the easiest thing I could possibly do. Now the time has come. Do what your heart yearns to do most."

Yoshino slowly raised her ornate, long pistol and pointed it at her cousin.

And then she swung her arm to her left, burying a bullet in her Hanaderian ally's skull. The man's head exploded in a haze of black smoke and red life, and his body tottered, folding to the grass. Yoshino smiled as the men behind her bellowed in outrage. "Yoshino!" breathed the Yellow Duchess, adrenaline, joy, and bloodlust rushing through her at once. Her hand itched to swing her greatsword. Her arms burned with the desire to butcher those Hanaderians in Yoshino's name. "You understood me. You understood everything."

"Knights, to me!" shrieked Yoshino, and the Foetida women around her nodded. Before her apparent allies could react, the knights' drawn swords were cleaving into the musketeers, high-pitched shrieks tearing into disbelieving, enraged groans and screams. Yoshino's pistol felled two more Hanaderians, and she swung her drawn mace, its devastating head bashing into and splintering the skull of a infantryman. "I don't know what to say to Rosa Foetida," she said softly, gore splattering her face. She licked her lips. "And I won't be able to find the courage to apologize to her."

"She understands," murmured Rei, savouring the tide of battle shift in her favour. Suddenly, she was back in command once more, with the army she knew and loved. No longer could these Hanaderians assume to exploit Yoshino and her manpower. Eriko was surely going to be pleased to have her army rightfully returned to her. "Say no more. You're here. I care about nothing else." Rei shoved her gauntlet in the face of a shocked Hanaderian, pulling out the mushed cartilage and blood with a single yank. Her knights continued to hack at the wall of soldiers, grimly pinning them down and preventing them from retreating to their cannons.

"And look at that, Yoshino. The White Princess has arrived, true to her grande soeur's word," whispered Rei.

Sachiko's eyes widened at the gargantuan shadow descending over the hill across from where Youko and Eriko had encamped.

"It couldn't be...?"

Standing amongst her elite knights, Youko grinned, heart hammering faster than ever before.

"She's here. She's really come. She, with the World Serpent!"

A great figure, a feline giant of sinister ebony, emerged from behind one of the hills. Its tail swung lightly from side to side. Its shadow seemed to swallow the sun itself. Overlooking the raging battle on the greenery, the armoured White Rose smiled, her sword by her side. "Shimako. Goronta. I think you two will be enough to handle them?"

Standing beside Sei, the Princess nodded silently. Goronta yawned. Shimako's brown boots shifted as the wind blew, scattering her tresses. She then broke into a sprint down the hill, drawing two small axes encrusted with sapphires, dashing directly for the formations of Hanaderians.

Suddenly, the republic's army was being assaulted from two directions.

"Aim!" shouted a concerned lieutenant. "Fire!"

Shimako dived to the ground, just before the cracking _boom_ of the muskets and arquebuses reached her. She scrambled up as she heard the cries to reload. She was closing the distance, nearing them, about to ensnare her prey. Many of the men abandoned their formations and pointed their deadly bayonets at her. Muscles tensed in preparation, she met the charging men with a flurry of perfectly timed and armed cuts that severed the sinews and limbs of her attackers. As arms and hands fell from their screaming owners, she began the onslaught Sei had sent her to wreak. The White Princess gutted the neck of a choking musketeer, spinning and parrying the jab of a bayonet before disembowelling its owner. She ignored the intestines tumbling out of the open stomach and scrambled behind the dying man, gripping his back tightly and allowing his corpse to eat another flurry of metal balls. Shoving the body aside, she sprinted at the frantically rearming boys, leaping high and smashing into their chaotic formation. The wolf's head butt of her handaxe smashed into the nose of a Hanaderian man, crushing his face inwards even as she pulled her weapon out of the gurgling soldier and parried the thrust of a bayonet aimed at her chest. Rosa Gigantea en bouton countered with an arcing sweep that cleaved a giant vertical gash in the man's torso. She grimaced, glancing at the hesitating warriors behind the falling soldier, and continued her sprint, mercilessly hemming them in like a wolf pursues sheep. All this time, her eyes remained cold and careful, calculating, calm and quiet.

Rei and Sachiko snapped out of their entranced wonder at Shimako's dance of death. "What are we waiting for?" cried Sachiko, swinging her longsword and beheading a stunned musketeer. "Press our advantage!"

"It looks like our enemies' morale has been broken, thanks to my little White Princess. Their strategy to overwhelm us with better technology will have to wait another day, if they survive this one," said Sei. She looked to her side, glancing up at Goronta. "Be a darling, won't you? This battlefield of thousands of men will be your supper."

Goronta purred, taking the hint, and began to strut towards the battlefield.

Yoshino's eyes widened as she watched Goronta move in the distance. "No."

"Yes," laughed Youko, wiping off the blood from her face. "Oh, Sei. She's really going to do it."

The oversized cat slinked towards the panicking Hanaderians, shrugging off the barrage of firepower that would have otherwise blown a mortal being to pieces. "Cannons! Fire the cannons!" screamed a division commander. Goronta hissed in pain for the first time, mildly irritated by the new firestorm of cannonballs that pelted and lodged into her grey and black fur. But even they were not enough to stop her advance. She raised a single limb above the scattering boys, her massive paw smashing away a line of fleeing soldiers and idle cannons. There was no time to re-equip them. Flying heads and black powder were dashed against the grass from the crushing might of Goronta's force, separated from their bodies. More rounds of steel pellets only served to annoy the World Serpent further, and she thumped her flicking tail, hurling another squadron of helpless Hanaderians into the air. Goronta gave a loud purr, a boisterous _meow_. The army with superior arms began to scatter, but Goronta was merciless. She pounced gleefully, and the earth shook as her paws landed a midst of human pulp and crushed arquebuses. Meanwhile, Shimako flicked her head up, throwing her handaxe at a charging Hanaderian. His head split through, he tumbled to the ground, and the bouton rolled forward, scooping up her weapon as she completed her solitary charge, twin axeheads slicing off the arms of another horrified man. His torso deprived of its limbs, Shimako delivered a humiliating kick to the howling soldier's abdomen, her boot punching through his guts and sending his ruined body falling to join the mass grave of his comrades.

She and Goronta continued their complete decimation of the Hanaderian ranks, holding Castle Albion for the new-found union between the three houses.

And as if that was not enough, Sei had drawn her pearl-white sword, her boots slowly gliding across the ground, before breaking into a gentle, pattering run. The White Rose's eyes glinted as she could sense Youko and Eriko's grateful eyes on her. "I've fantasized about this day for so long," she whispered.

The three houses were fighting together. After so many centuries of strife and hatred, they were outflanking and outfighting a common foe. War had torn them apart, but now the Hanadera Republic had ironically brought them together again. The crimson-orange sun was setting. Goronta hissed as she raised her head from a heap of silent bodies and drying, dying Hanaderians, baring her bloodsoaked fangs, yellow eyes hungry for more human flesh.

The snowflakes of Fimbulwinter were weightless, but they had begun to fall on Fukuzawa Yuki's republic.

* * *

Decked in green and white robes, her arms, torso and legs protected by steel armour, Yumi had separated herself from Sachiko long ago, hacking and slashing her way past the bayonets jabbing at her. Indeed, they had not spoken since they fell asleep in each other's arms the night before. A line of musketeers in grey uniforms released a volley of metal balls, and she quickly dashed behind an unsuspecting Hanaderian, grabbing him tightly and having his body shield her from the barrage. Tossing aside the human shield-turned piece of meat, she charged at his friends, swinging her emerald-hilt longsword angrily and eviscerating one of them with a single slash.

Sachiko had trained her well, to be sure, but even without the Red Baroness's tutelage in swordplay, she had a feeling she could never die from physical wounds. After all, she could sense she was suffering something much more painful within.

She glanced around as a new formation pulled up from behind the fallen men. She had somehow allowed herself to be surrounded. A man's voice rang out from the bristling wall of bayonets, the muskets' barrels pointed at her chest and head. "You will come with us, Fukuzawa Yumi. Your brother - President Yuki - he's expecting you."

Grimacing, Yumi dropped her sword, and it fell to the grass. She slowly raised her hands in apparent surrender. "Good," snapped one of the men. "With your cooperation, we might get this over and done with sooner than expected. We're here only because you are. Come with us, and your friends may be spared."

"It is true that the spears and arrows of Lillian are no match for your guns and cannons. Truly, Yuki spared no expense to come to me. The ages truly pass like a blink of stardust. I wonder, then, what rare weapon may be able to overcome such earthshaking power?" wondered Yumi aloud, her tone one of defiance and scorn.

"Enough nonsense!" cried a soldier. "Come quietly with us!"

"_Little men_." The girl's sudden smile was not a benign one. And her voice... it had suddenly changed. It was shriller. Darker. Less. pleasant. It was as eerie and chilling as the dark countenance of the moon. "Can _you_ survive the aurora borealis? Can _you_ escape the blinding fire of the Nordic lights?"

"What... what are you talking about!" cried one of the men, a terrific chill running down his spine.

"Did you gormless knaves think that goddesses tread lightly in a mortal coil?" spat Yumi suddenly, her brown irises disappearing into a sea of shimmering turquoise. The boys' eyes widened. Something was wrong. Dreadfully wrong. This voice was most certainly not Yumi's voice. These words were not _her_ words. And suddenly, her voice changed again, to that of another woman's. "It's over," snarled the second presence through Yumi's haunted mouth. Her pitch tightened, heightened to a third fugue of a voice, and she shrieked in dread triumph. "We've come amongst our bleak and green isles once more, for the glory of battle, for the orgy of conquest, and _no_ army can expel us!"

"Who... who _are_ you?" screamed the men. "Come on, you idiots! Shoot her! _Attack_!"

But it was too late. One of the musketeer's heads exploded, his bones and cartilage bending and snapping at an insidious will. A white hot blaze had consumed his skull, burning and blinding. There was something about the night in Yumi. Starfire smouldered in her eyes. Around her hand danced the swirling, giddy eddy of sea-blue and green celestial flames. She slowly lowered her arms as the men around her began to scream in agony. Three voices rang from Yumi's twisted mouth, her eyes alight in sadistic, exultant bloodlust. "Let Yumi's brother send his armies in desperation to save this body. But he will sacrifice his nation in vain for this wagon of meat. She's dying, but _we fell from Valhalla back home_!" Fire erupted from her hands, snaking towards the petrified Hanaderians. Clothes, wood, and metal were incinerated instantly along with the flesh and organs, devoured in a shower of divine lights. Her entwined arms sensually raised high, Yumi's lips twisted in a wicked smile, the turquoise light in her eyes burning brilliantly. "Did you all think we would walk lightly when we came upon the earth?"

Not even the dust of these men's remains were left. How these pathetic dogs died would remain a secret for now, because now was not the right time for the girl's grande soeur - or anyone else - to see this. Surrounded by Hanaderian corpses, the Rose saints' dying vessel raised her hand, the fire of the stars in heaven flickering in her omnipotent palm.

"Onee-sama," she whispered, her hoarse voice struggling to push back the forces of the reincarnating goddesses.

"Would that I could have stayed with you longer...

"I love you and goodbye."

* * *

**NEXT ACT: ****VALHALLA TREMBLES.**

**BROTHER CONFRONTS SISTER.**

**A BARONESS'S DESPAIR.**


	6. The Lillian Revolution

**- WARS OF THE ROSES - **

* * *

Hello! I hope you had a Merry Christmas, and I wish you a most Happy New Year! \(^o^)/ Thank you for reading my story and I hope you enjoy it.

With a hasty alliance forged between the ruling Roses of Lillian's three royal houses, the tide has turned slightly in the monarchy's favour as the lady knights defend their home from the Hanadera Republic's barrage of advanced weapons and disciplined fighting conscripts. Despite the Roses' personal joy at having a reason to join together (ending centuries of estrangement), the final outcome of this unexpected war is still open.

The brutal invasion moves on to a battle of wills, cunning, and diplomacy as both factions dig in against each other. The ruthless, seasonal Fimbulwinter has begun to ravage Lillian. Now is the time for the Roses to act. They must neutralize the enemy's colonization of their isles, to force them to trade with them gunpowder, to ensure that these men forever regret landing on the shores of the Lillian continent. Amidst the open war, intrigue and backstabbing, however, Sachiko struggles with a terrifying question: should she reveal the truth, unveil the revelation? Should she confess to her peers and sisters that her own squire is struggling against the onslaught of three spirits? And no merely ordinary spirits - the deified ghosts of the legendary Rose saints, the prime Rose goddesses.

But Sachiko is not the only one struggling. The President of the Hanadera Republic, Yuki, has not led his modernized armies to this gothic continent due to any hatred of monarchy, or any desire to conquer the territories of the Roses. His target is his sister, the sister he grew up with and is now bearing three divinities.

The tragic war between Fukuzawa Yumi - or more accurately, the Rose saints inside - and Fukuzawa Yuki continues.

How long will it be before the Lillian Houses discovers the primal power in their midst?

* * *

**- Act VI - **

**- The Lillian Revolution -**

* * *

_The Royal Chapel. Capital of the Kingdom of Lillian, "Thorntree" _

The men seemed subdued, bowed, humbled. They should have held their heads high - after all, they were ambassadors, high-ranking diplomats of the Hanadera Republic - except that they had come to negotiate a settlement. What should have been a lightning-fast conquest of an inferior, backwater kingdom had stalemated into a war of attrition against their well-disciplined musketeers and magical forces they never expected to be matched with. The man who led the entourage looked considerably more confident. Tall and handsome, dark eyes glittering with secret mischief, his sweeping black cassock cast a proud silhouette that bolstered his already formidable height. The man towered over his negotiating adversaries - the three Roses of the Lillian Kingdom - but they were not intimidated, equally striking in their red, white, and yellow robes and armour. After all, they were the victorious ones for now.

Behind them stood the short, frail High Queen Shiori, decked in thick polar bears' fur and emerald-dyed silk.

The women stared at him impassively, and he returned the expressionlessness with his own.

"Chancellor Kashiwagi, your quill," said Youko, nodding triumphantly. "Do not keep Her Majesty waiting."

"Very well, very well. I am honour-bound as Chancellor to fulfil my President - and your Queen's - wishes." The black-haired gentleman raised his hand, preparing to sign the thick, elaborate parchment that rolled out before him on the wooden table. He glanced at Youko and Eriko, who smirked, waiting for him to act.

He sighed, smiling in resignation. He brought down his hand and pressed the quill's tip on the parchment, giving the document of trade his seal of approval.

"The treaty of concessions, agreed and signed in the capital of Thorntree, is now in effect," proclaimed Sei, spreading her arms. "This is the Treaty of Lillian-Hanaderian Trade! In return for permission for the United States of Hanadera to establish a colony on our shores, we shall begin exchange - our wood and stones, generous natural resources, for their black powder and arms." Sei's eyes glinted. "And their maps, which have proved so useful to your commanders and commodores, will be of great benefit to us Roses and our generals too."

Kashiwagi glanced at Sei, their eyes meeting. It was a huge gamble for the two countries. In return for a guaranteed presence on this mystic continent, Kashiwagi had no choice but to share Hanadera's wartime technology with the Roses - a potentially fatal mistake that could cost his President, Fukuzawa Yuki, any chance of maintaining an advantage. But what choice did he have? They had no resources to fight off Goronta, the voracious World Serpent that the White Rose had unleashed on them. They needed time to regroup, to wait for reinforcements. And then, _then_ they would strike back, before the Lillian knights had time to master firearms, which was very clearly Sei's strategy.

The Red Rose hadn't agreed with her White peer. The Chinensis House favoured an all-out push, a final assault against the buckling invasion force of Hanadera. But the moment Shiori decided to give her Royal Assent to Sei, the White Rose's strategy won out. This was going to be a carefully calculated war of attrition, one which the Lillian Kingdom would bet on winning with its home ground advantage, superior resources, and brave Lady Knights.

"I still haven't had the honour of meeting the Republic's supreme commander, your head of state," said Shiori, as polite as her royal protocol dictated. "When shall I be able to host your president?"

"Very soon," affirmed Kashiwagi, taking a short bow. "I will ensure he is ready to meet with Your Majesty." His mysterious eyes glittered. "I beg to take my leave, esteemed Roses of the Lillian houses. But remember this," he added, his warning a cryptic one. "My President has thrown everything he has against his enemy. And he will find his enemy. He _will_ defeat them. No treaty can prevent that."

"May I obtain Your Majesty's royal consent for this treaty?" asked Sei, turning to the High Queen behind her and kneeling. Her left leg slowly descended to the ground even as her right knee bent.

Shiori nodded, her golden crown glimmering. "Proceed. You have my approval."

Standing behind Shiori, looming over her right shoulder, was the supreme knight of the realm, the greatest warrior of them all, Hasekura Rei. Clad in her slimmer suit of armour, she turned as Kashiwagi backed away from the White Rose, her eyes meeting the silent Sachiko. As the atmosphere's severity began to lift after Kashiwagi's signing of the treaty, Rei strode over to the Red Baroness, putting a firm hand on her shoulder. "Rosa Gigantea is a good negotiator," muttered Rei. "Her strategy will pay off, I assure you."

"I don't understand," said Sachiko bitterly. "I don't understand why Her Majesty, Rosa Gigantea, and Rosa Foetida would all adopt a plan that runs contrary to onee-sama's. The Chinensis knights offered a straightforward tactic: ride the wave of victory, and drive those brutes forever into the sea. Why do you even wish to keep them on the island? Soon, they will begin building settlements and strongholds. We are going to see our land carved up and divided."

Rei's eyes glinted. "Don't you understand, Sachiko? Rosa Gigantea timed this perfectly. Fimbulwinter approaches. The Hanaderians will find themselves stranded on these isles, crushed by a winter beyond their imagining. We have all the time in the world as they scrummage for food while their horses freeze and starve. This is the beginning of my reforms for my house's armies. I strongly suggest you stop living in the past. Despicable as the Hanaderians may be, they have woken us from our sleep. Arquebuses. Muskets. Cannons. Imagine how they will fold when confronted with our knights, our Goronta, and their own weapons."

Rei squeezed Sachiko's shoulder harder, whispering her revolutionary plans in the Red Baroness's reddening ear. This thrill from the Yellow Duchess was beginning to grow familiar.

"I'm going to train my knights in these superior weapons. I will have my new knights ravage those men the same way they ravaged mine."

The modernization of the Foetida clan's - no, the entire continent's - armies had begun.

With the signing of the Treaty of Lillian-Hanaderian Trade, the monarchy and its dominions were going to transform and blossom.

History was in the making, and Sachiko was witnessing it unfold before her very eyes.

* * *

The crestfallen men had left, bowing out with Chancellor Kashiwagi. For now, Hanadera had been humbled by the combined power of the three houses. But men were persistent. They would return, baying for blood again. But this treaty forced them on the back foot. No longer did they have the element of surprise. Next time, they would be facing hardened, prepared knights.

Back on her seat of office, Shiori looked down from her high throne at the three kneeling Roses, their red, yellow, and white capes draping around them. "I was wrong about you three." Her voice was soft, welcoming. Her smile was broad, unusually strong for the frail sovereign. "You have all redeemed yourself before our gracious Virgin, and honoured the spirits of our ancestral prime Roses."

"No," said Sei softly, looking at the ground. "You were right all along, Your Majesty. The Kingdom cannot be three houses, only one. For now, we will do our utmost to stay true to the ancient tradition, before the schism which tore our lines apart. The first priority now, when the first shipments of black powder arrive, is to equip and train your royal guards with these new weapons. In the meantime, Your Majesty, I beg that you replace your elite women's cumbersome armour with rank and file uniforms that will allow easier handling of firearms. Suits of armour than once defended against halberds and polearms won't be of use against Hanadera. Geographers! Engineers! Our knights are about to enjoy a renaissance, Your Majesty."

Shiori nodded. "I defer to your strategic authority, Rosa Gigantea."

Eriko turned her head. "You do realize this strategy will require more than merely military reform?" she asked, peering pointedly at Sei. "Not that it matters since the Hanaderians apparently massacred the entirety of your boyar nobility, but eventually your serfs, who fear and despise you, will need more than even Goronta to keep them in line."

"Indeed," laughed Sei. "I don't think 'President Sei' sounds ideal, although I recognize Hanaderian influence will inevitably force us to ask questions about our old ways."

"There is no doubt we must build a more efficient nation-state that can compete with the meritocratic innovation of Hanadera," said Shiori. "But let us discuss the devolution of royal powers later." Sachiko, Rei, and Shimako stood behind the kneeling Roses. Staring unseeingly at the voluminous, embroidered capes of her superiors, Sachiko felt a chill run down her spine. They still did not know. They still did not know what was inside Yumi's head. What was manifesting inside her body.

The Rose saints had been prophesied to return. But never did Sachiko imagine that they would return like this, into the body of an innocent girl, and worse yet, into her petite soeur's tender form. How in the valkyries' name was she supposed to tell them. Would anyone believe her? How were they supposed to defeat goddesses inside a human body?

Could they bring themselves to? Dare they confront the very women that founded the Kingdom of Lillian, assuming Yumi was telling the truth and those spirits weren't some trickster demons?

"This deserves a celebration," declared the White Rose. "May I rise, Your Majesty?"

"Yes," came the quiet reply.

"Entertain Her Majesty, Rosa Canina!" commanded Sei, lifting herself up and snapping her fingers. "This diplomatic settlement deserves a celebration. Let's have the royal chefs prepare a proper feast for us tonight, exclusive only to our three houses and heirs!"

A harp's tinkling melody began to lilt through the air, and from the darkness emerged the shapely form of a short-haired, ebony-locked woman, her feline, mysterious yellow eyes caressing Sei's smile while her long fingers strummed the strings of her instrument. Garbed in thick robes lined with wolves' fur, similar to Shimako's Gigantea garments, Shizuka Kanina opened her luscious mouth, parting her delicious lips, and began to sing a bardic song of adulation for the Lillian Royal House, an ancient anthem that once served, centuries ago, to rally the noble houses around the High Queen's single banner:

_"O High Queen of Lillian!_

_Scion of the Great Spirits, _

___Heir to the prime Roses, _

_Beloved of this green land's glades, _

___Empress of our sceptred isles."_

_"O High Queen of Lillian!_

_Command our ladies with wisdom and resolve, _

___Defend our empire with passion and courage, _

_Punish our enemies with imperial cruelty, _

___And bless our devotion with the Virgin's affection." _

Sachiko swallowed nervously as she listened to the chorus, throat dry. She stepped forward, heart pounding, palms sweating.

"Onee-sama. Roses. Please listen to me. I have something to confess - "

"Another!" cried Sei, clapping. "Sing until the words have dried on your tongue, Shizuka. sing loudly and proudly for our High Queen."

Shiori smiled shyly as the Royal Bard bowed, and her fingers began to strum the harp again. "Another poem, dedicated to the Roses' bravery," said Shizuka quietly.

Once more, the mesmeric song drowned Sachiko's stuttering words in a sea of tinkling decadence, and her chance was gone. Youko and Eriko made their way over to Sei, their faces beaming. Sachiko's face fell, her heart sinking. For now, she would have to wait. There was a time and place for everything.

She tried not to let her lip tremble in plain sight.

Because for each moment wasted, her petite soeur died a little more.

Yumi's life, so briefly in her lonely hands, was already slipping from her fingers. And she was helpless to stop it.

* * *

_Chinensis Palace. Bedchamber of the Red Baroness_

She was getting more feverish. She could hide it when she was in public, amongst the boutons and the Roses, but here, inside Sachiko's warm room and on her humongous bed, she twisted and turned, gasping for some fresh air, for a brief taste of the cold, frosty mist that descended on Chinensis Palace in the mornings. Rosa Chinensis en bouton drew down, pressing the goblet against her petite soeur's lips. "How do you feel, Yumi?" she asked mournfully, adjusting Yumi's pallid, sweating head against the purple satin pillow. She gazed at the rosary, the cross that Yumi still wore, and it was stained by the grime and perspiration on the girl's chest.

In a gossamer white dress, Yumi's voice was hoarse but strong. Her brown eyes remained strong, and most of all, fixated on Sachiko. "I'm fighting."

The Red Baroness bit her lip. "I feel so powerless. But I won't send you away. I won't abandon you. I can't."

Yumi smiled sadly. "Even if you did send me away, the spirits inside me would simply bring me back here again. We sealed a pact. They would have their way with this world, and I would protect you from their wrath. Whether they betray our deal is another story."

"What do they want with us? Can I talk to them?" The Red bouton's face turned dark. "I would have words with these goddesses? What quarrel could they have with us? They're supposed to support us. We're defending their land against an invasion!"

For the first time in a while, Yumi laughed (much to Sachiko's surprise). "Onee-sama... I can barely keep them from suffocating me. Soon, they will be speaking from my ruined throat. But not yet. Not..." She gasped as the familiar whirlpool of Northern Lights ignited in her pupils, a sea of stars shimmering in her eyes. Sachiko couldn't react in time as Yumi's hand shot upwards, grabbing her collar and pulling her down. Instinctively, Sachiko's hand whipped down her belt and drew her dagger, but Yumi's strength was no longer her own, but that of three vengeful divinities. Yumi's eyes glowed as she overpowered the struggling Sachiko, kissing her, pressing against the Baroness with a supernatural force and passion. The older woman cried out in pain and pleasure, her voice muffled by Yumi's possessed lips, lip bleeding slightly from the ferocious kiss. Panting, she pulled away briefly, if only to catch a meagre breath, before she was pulled in again by Yumi's passionate arms, her superhuman grip nearly crushing Sachiko's elbows. Struggling, wriggling, her senses surrendered as her hand relaxed enough for the dagger to slip from her drooping fingers. Breathing heavily onto her soeur's wet tongue, Sachiko felt her lips singed by Yumi's warmth and saliva. Her arms couldn't move.

She was helpless.

"_You taste of loneliness_," taunted a haunting, ancient voice quietly. Sachiko could barely piece it together thanks to its dead dialect, but she more or less understood the basic words. "_Loneliness, and incompetence_."

"_You're cruel_," cackled Yumi suddenly, and this time it was another's voice. She pulled the trembled Sachiko away, throwing her onto the edge of the bed. Hair mussed and dishevelled, the manhandled Baroness moaned as she turned to see Yumi talking to herself, like a madwoman. She was anything but insane. The chorus of the merciless dialogue continued. "_Stop mocking your own daughters, Saint Chinensis_." Yumi's face turned serious, scornful. She glared down at the trembling Sachiko. "_She is no daughter of mine, Saint Foetida. None of them are. They insult the offices we established_."

Even though Sachiko was not entirely sure what was happening within Yumi's body, her heart broke. She wanted to cry. But even the liberty to let out a pitiful whimper was taken away from her as Yumi crawled over, straddling her senior's writhing, bruised and battered body between her skinny legs. She screamed as she felt her raven-black hair yanked sharply back, her head bending painfully at Yumi's rough abuse. Those goddess-hands clamped around the back of her sore neck, and the vessel of the prime Roses drew down, baring her lips, blood running from her gums and dripping onto the already red bedsheets, eyes swimming with divine hate. "_Stupid girl._ _Stupid girl_!" Shutting tight her eyes, choking and sputtering in terror, Sachiko screamed again in despair as she felt her face slapped painfully and repeatedly. Face stinging red as well as suffocating blue, she wanted to yell for the guards, but Yumi was fighting; she knew in her heart of hearts that Yumi was fighting. She knew because the grip around her throat had loosened, and Yumi was hissing, her damp lip trembling. Suddenly, her bouton scrabbled off her bucking form and crashed against the decadent drapes covering the wall.

"_Begone_," she seethed, human pupils emerging from the pools of aqua. "You _won't_ overpower me! Not yet. Not until you've fulfilled your vengeance and spared onee-sama!"

Sachiko felt her world emerging from powerless blackness back to colour. Back to Yumi's struggling form. "Away from me!" screeched the petite soeur again. "We had a deal!" She fell back, pressing her hands against her bleeding mouth. Choking on her own blood, she stared at the terrified Baroness, before skirting away her eyes.

"I'm sorry, onee-sama," she bawled, heaving in agony and regret. "I'm sorry. Please believe me. Why would I dare to raise a hand against you?"

Sachiko suddenly realized her shoulders were shaking uncontrollably. Her hand rubbed her pounding neck, wheezing desperately to make up for the momentary deprivation of cold Nordic breeze. She blinked, wildly, adjusting back to the normal intake of air she needed. "You cannot lose yourself in the maddening embrace of these goddesses. I forbid it," she groaned. She had no energy left to be angry, or even afraid. She just wanted to sleep, to be held by a Yumi who wouldn't batter or hit or choke her. "You must fight them, fight them until I find a way to exorcise them."

"You don't understand, do you? Onee-sama. My heart has already rotted away, its bloody remains kept beating only by the magical power of these women. They stitch my body together. If they leave, they leave behind destroyed organs, frayed vessels, decaying bones." Yumi's eyes were welling with tears. "I just want you and my brother to live through this storm, to survive the wrath of these goddesses."

Sachiko's despairing expression reflected the heartbreak in her aching chest. "You can't rob me of hope like this. You're my squire. I don't want to fail you."

"You are guiltless," whispered the recovering Yumi lovingly. "You always will be guiltless."

She took a deep breath as Yumi gazed apologetically at her. Would she regret the choices she made from hereon? Would she be willing to bet Yumi's life against the survival of the House of Chinensis and the kingdom she loved? What deserved her loyalty - Yumi's fraying, decaying life or the modernization of Lillian and the annihilation of Hanadera?

"Perhaps I should host an audience with your brother."

* * *

**NEXT ACT: ****YUKI'S DESPERATE GAMBLE? **

**OR THE ROSE SAINTS' DEATH SENTENCE?**

******SACHIKO MUST CHOOSE...**


	7. Primal Crisis

**- WARS OF THE ROSES -**

* * *

Hi and welcome back to Wars of the Roses. Sorry for the delay. Fanfiction always serves as my private refuge, where all pressures escape from my fingers "a fiction about a fiction"... ironic, isn't it, that we can all share our fantasies about our favourite characters online? ^.^

It is a snowy winter, and the conflict between the Hanadera Republic and the Lillian Kingdom grows ever more complex and puzzling to the involved combatants. How can Sachiko save Yumi from the Rose saints? How will the Roses and her new allies react to this horrific enemy? And what should they do with the Hanaderian armies that have made camp on their shores? They must urgently reform and retrain their outdated knights with the new power Hanadera has promised them... but now, it seems as if President Yuki has different plans for his invasion.

How could those women understand? How could those Roses understand? How could the Red Baroness understand the pain of a sister held in thrall by a trinity of malevolent celestials?

This is Hanadera's story as much as Lillian's. Yuki and Kashiwagi struggle to throw off their Rose pursuers as they marshal their men's muskets, cannons, and arquebuses.

For Yumi, they would destroy the Kingdom of Lillian.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy it. :)

* * *

**- Act Seven -**

**- Primal Crisis -**

* * *

This was supposed to be a secret meeting, a confidentiality above all confidentialities.

In the yurt constructed by Chinensis serfs, the President of Hanadera sat and waited, wrapped in a thick bear coat, boots caked in rime. Shielded from the howling blizzard outside, he waited for almost an hour before his dialogue partner made her way in. His brown eyes narrowed in slight annoyance at having been kept for so long.

"You may see yourselves as aristocrats, as blue bloods worthier than untitled men," he called out over the noise of the snowstorm and looking sharply at Baroness Sachiko, "but as the first among equals - as president of a meritocratic nation-state - my own time is precious, too."

Sachiko pulled off the crimson, satin hood of her coat. She let a breath of frosty air, fresh from the cold. Her boots were caked with frost and rime, her cold beauty accentuated by the tiny flakes of snow that scraped her black strands of hair, her small nose, and her flushed lips. She gave Yuki a withering glare. "You will wait like any head of state should receive a Chinensis noble... especially as you were the one who came to our shores first."

His two bodyguards shifted, their hands ready to draw their sabres. Raising his hand to warn them off, Yuki sighed. "Sachiko-san. What is the emergency? Why have you called this meeting amongst sworn enemies? I hope you have a good reason." Yuki scowled, a rare sight. "For I will not stop my attack on Hanadera until I root out my enemies, and they are foes your swords, lances, and arrows can't wound."

"I know." Sachiko's dark eyes shone. "I know who you are seeking to find, president."

"What?" asked Yuki, all irritation forgotten as he took in Sachiko's revelation. "But... how do you know who I'm looking for."

Sachiko pressed on. "You and I both know the real threat facing my homeland, and your very soul. It's Yumi, isn't it? Yumi needs our help."

"How do you know?" repeated Yuki, his voice a whisper. "You know of the prophecy? Wait - perhaps you do. It was the ancient bardic tales of your land that foretold the return of the Rose saints. But how do you know those goddesses have made their home inside my sister?"

"I only know of the prophecy in vague terms, like most of the other women in my land. But I experienced the terror of Yumi's pain firsthand," replied Sachiko, painful memories of Yumi manhandling and abuse stinging her aching heart. Even now, her neck felt sore from Yumi's hands. She tried to speak, but had to swallow before she could press on. "Yumi, your sister... she was already on these sceptred isles before your forces attacked. I know nor what compelled her to seek me out. Perhaps she was already possessed by those celestials. But she knew she wanted to find Chinensis Palace. And she indeed make her home there with me..." She looked down at the ground. "But, as time went by and we defended ourselves against your armies, the goddesses began to eat away at her."

Yuki shook his head. "No," he whispered softly. "Then I was already too late."

"I can confirm your fears. The goddesses dwell within my soeur, and although they've endowed her with great strength - she could easily wipe out your armies alone - the prime Roses plan to destroy us once they're done with you, and reign over Lillian as they did in life."

"Why have you not told your superiors, the Roses?" asked Yuki quietly and in disbelief. "Why are you telling me, your arch-enemy, before anyone else?"

Sachiko's eyes burned. "Because she is your sister, Mister President," gritted the Red Baroness. "And she is my soeur. Her bonds to us both are indestructible. And we must accord her the dignity she deserves, not like those evil deities, who see her as a mere vessel."

"If necessary, I will end her life. Better an honourable death than to be subsumed into a demonic goddess's consciousness. You women of the north agree, don't you?" Yuki grimaced. "I see, I see. And you have no problem with trying to kill the founders of your monarchy? I would have thought Lillian's nobility would welcome the return of the Rose saints."

"They have no relation to us except as invaders, just like you. I wasn't alive when they founded this Kingdom. And as far as I'm concerned, they are intruders upon the land like any other," spat Sachiko. "This conversation is over. Have your army meet mine tomorrow. I have prepared a trap for Yumi... no, for the goddesses."

Yuki pursed his lips as Rosa Chinensis en bouton departed from their shelter. Sachiko stepped out of the yurt, blinking as she looked around the snow-capped landscape. It was no longer stormy, and the blizzard's screams had stopped.

The world was a beautiful white.

Sachiko stopped and gaped at the three women in red, white, and yellow hoods standing before her. "How did you know to come here?"

"I had my scouts follow you, dear Sachiko," said the Red Rose coolly. "You are not Rosa Chinensis yet. You must accept tha there are things we know, that you don't know."

"Like the fact that you and Yumi-chan's strange behaviour already alerted us to the... enemy within our midst," said Rosa Foetida. "We are the heirs to the prime Roses, remember? We know what the prophecy says. Shizuka-san can recite it by heart. And since the boy inside that yurt also knows, it's only natural that we must... tailor our plans so that we can defeat both the Hanaderians and our divine visitors."

Sachiko almost wanted to back away, but Rosa Gigantea's gloved hand clapped tightly on her shoulder, and she jumped. "We're disappointed you didn't invite us to join you," declared Sei, smiling. "We are, after all, at war, and here you are, meeting with the enemy. We should surely at least know why."

Sachiko gulped. So they knew. How foolish, how utterly idiotic had she been all this time? "Forgive me, onee-sama..."

"I'm not the one you'll be apologizing to soon," said Youko grimly. "You do realize what must be done, do you not?"

Sachiko's eyes were fearful. "Please, I wish to do this..."

"On your own, you want to say?" scoffed Youko. "You can barely defeat Rosa Foetida's bouton in a duel of blades, what makes you think you can survive the goddesses that created this Kingdom? Arrogance needs a limit. No." She smiled grimly. "I want you to walk back into that yurt and call another audience with the Hanaderian president. Tell him that the three Houses of Lillian will throw their full weight against Yumi as well."

Sachiko shook her head. "You can't do this to her, onee-sama. You can't do this to me. To Yumi and I."

Youko's eyes were hard. "There is no need for sentimentality, Sachiko," she insisted. "That you called this meeting with Yuki-kun is proof enough. I order you. Walk back in and tell him. Tell him that Yumi must die at our combined hands, so that the Rose saints are expelled from Lillian."

* * *

She didn't sleep at all that night, even though Yumi snored quietly in her arms. The naked Sachiko adjusted the felt blanket over their warm bodies, listening to the light rain patter around them outside Chinensis Palace. She wondered if she would ever sleep again.

"_Tomorrow we do battle, to rout the Hanaderians_," she had told Yumi, before they retired to their dark chambers and blown out the candles. "_And I want my petite soeur to lead the charge_."

Yumi's eyes had brightened, and she hugged Sachiko tightly, thanking her for giving her the chance to prove herself.

The dark cloud of the Rose saints had been momentarily forgotten, and Yumi seemed to be sleeping quite peacefully tonight.

Sachiko tenderly stroked her thumb along Yumi's slightly parted lips, her small nose, and her cheekbone. She didn't know what to think, or whether to cry. She only knew that she had been a coward, in so many ways.

She wanted to apologize. She had planned to give her so much more in their life together as soeurs.

Her voice was an inaudible, remorseful whisper. "I love you, Yumi."

She closed her exhausted eyes and held Yumi closer, for tomorrow was the day she would suffer execution.

* * *

Dawn had come.

The knights of Chinensis had positioned themselves alongside the musketeers, and Sachiko was standing several yards away from them. By her side stood Yumi, bewildered and uncertain. She looked quite hollow despite her green silken outfit, which was encased in silver armour. She stroked her long brown hair nervously. "Why are the banners of the Chinensis knights standing with our enemies? You told me to stand with you and fight the Hanaderians. But it seems..."

The sun was slowly rising, casting its light over a grassland where the snow had only melted several days before.

It was dawn, and the dew in the air smelled like blood.

Yumi blanched as the yellow standards of Foetida also rose amongst the amassed, grand army. She stared up at Sachiko, trembling. "Onee-sama," she whispered, clutching her arm, "what is this? I don't understand." Already, her heart knew what had transpired between the Hanaderians and Chinensis warriors. But her eyes betrayed her disbelief. "You told them all, didn't you? Please, onee-sama. I can hold them in, I can fight them... I can stay by your side, I promise. Please, I don't want to die, I need a chance," she begged pitifully.

Sachiko bit her lip. She lightly pushed her own soeur away, and tried not to meet Yumi's terrified eyes as she drew her sword. "Forgive me, my petite soeur. No girl should have to suffer a betrayal of such a sacred bond. I will burn in hellfire for breaking my soeur's promise, but I would rather that than the Rose saints devour you!"

"You're only justifying your fear, your uncertainty!" cried Yumi, backing away. This could not be happening. Her own onee-sama couldn't possibly be lifting a weapon against her!

"That is a death of such indignity that I won't stand to bear!" screamed Sachiko. "Do you think I want to do this?"

"They are dangerous, they want to kill you, they'll only be encouraged by this - " Yumi cried out as the celestials within her reacted, her eyes enveloped by the Northern Lights. Shrieking hoarfrost erupted around her, completely unnatural for the day's weather, and hurled Sachiko away. The Red bouton landed painfully on her backside, glancing up in dread as Yumi's expression changed from one of fear to one of hatred. The army in the distance could see the starfire exploding from Yumi's body, and it began to rumble towards Yumi and the Red Baroness.

Sprawling along the ground, Sachiko scrambled back up and screamed, "_charge_!"

"So you all know who we are." Yumi glanced at the nearing knights and musketeers, and then back at Sachiko. "Everyone knows we're in here. Then it all comes together. Now we do battle," cried the three deities through Yumi. The body of the innocent girl raised her clenched fist.

"As the prophecies foretold," howled Saint Chinensis.

"And as _Götterdämmerung _shakes the very ground beneath us," cackled Saint Foetida.

"All shall perish in Surtur's ashes, and from the sundered soil of Ragnarok a green Lillian will rise, ruled once more by Our great authority!" crowed Saint Gigantea.

The gods were not humanity's friends!

* * *

The knights raised their lances, shrieking out a battlecry as the banners of Chinensis and Foetida were lifted high to the blue heavens. Red roses and yellow patterns of the two clans decked the sky. The first charging regiment lowered their lances and pointed their deadly tips at the growing form of Yumi, who was still duelling with the Red bouton. "Out of the way, Sachiko!" cried the leader of the knights. Hasekura Rei slid down her visor, and for the first time, her entourage were also carrying primitive arquebuses, designed and built hastily in the event their truce with Hanadera was broken. Now, for the very first time, the Yellow Duchess deployed her reformist strategy and new armaments against a girl who had, just last night, been sleeping in Sachiko's arms. "I'm sorry, Yumi-chan," gritted Rei. "Lancers, with me! Dragoons, encircle our enemy!"

The collective war-scream from the armoured noblewomen reached a high-pitched crescendo, a banshee-like scream that would have terrified anyone... anyone, except goddesses of primal might. Yumi grabbed Sachiko's collar roughly and hurled the struggling Baroness away. She turned and sneered at the wall of bristling metal lances and snorting horses thundering directly for her. She opened her mouth -

Rei's eyes widened behind her knight's visor, and without warning, she released her horse and lance, tumbling to the ground. Her subordinates blanched - surely the charge was too late to stop now? Had she slipped and fallen?

"Get down, girls!" shrieked Rei, even as she rolled painfully out of the way of her horses' hooves. "She's about to attack! _Get down_!"

Yumi shrieked an inhuman cry, and from her gaping mouth erupted a macabre blast of starlight, a beam of mystic fire that shot without warning at the galloping horses and their riders. One woman felt her metal visor melting away, before her eyes turned to pulp and the tissue of her lips and nose cartilage melted together. There wasn't even any time to feel pain as the heads and torsos of three knights were instantly incinerated, leaving three halves of carcasses bouncing limply on their flailing horses - only that those horses had had their heads burned off too. The horrified knights behind the corpses slammed into the sudden wall, and Yumi stepped forward, smiling as Rei's new 'dragoons' raised their primitive firearms, their horses surrounding her and clopping cautiously around her and sealing any chance of escape. Ancient, runic magic hissed through Yumi's mouth with each breath. Meanwhile, the Hanaderian men ran into disciplined formations, stopping as square phalanxes behind the Foetida dragoons and pointing their muskets at the girl. She glanced at the amassing, allied armies, and grinned.

"You think you have us surrounded," snarled the sinister Yumi, flicking back her long hair as she looked up at the red and yellow banners above her. "Those flags belong to us, you know."

The strategy was simple, apparently. Overwhelm her with sheer numbers and firepower until they could force a negotiating settlement with the three divinities inside her.

"Leave my petite soeur's body," Sachiko had recovered from Yumi's monstrous strength. She rose and pointed her longsword at Yumi, steadying her otherwise trembling hand. "We won't show you mercy, even if you were the founders of this royal empire!"

The goddesses needed a suitable vessel to return to their sceptred isle. Yet their power was too much for Yumi's frail, mortal shell to contain.

A hail of metal pellets from the dragoons hurtled at Yumi, but the possessed girl gestured angrily with her hand, a spherical sheet of starlight appearing from nowhere and incinerating the projectiles that came anywhere close to her. Momentarily blinded by the flash of light, Sachiko staggered back, only to see Yumi shriek out a runic curse, fire once again spilling from her bleeding mouth. The dragoons and their horses shrieked in terror as the flames sliced off arms, legs, heads - severed limbs and body parts were bathed in purifying heat along with their armour. The disordered knights rallied and attempted another charge, but Yumi allowed the cavalry no space, raising her arms and channelling white-hot fury from the Northern Lights. Even as the ladies' heads burst in embers and blood inside their helms, Rei lunged at Yumi and tackled her, wrestling her to the ground and pinning her struggling form down. She raised her gauntleted fist and smashed it into Yumi's face, breaking her nose.

"Ha. Ha. Ha." Turquoise light swirling in Yumi's sickly eyes, she gurgled and slurred through her crushed cartilage, loosened teeth, and bubbling blood. "All you've done is rearranged Yumi-chan's pretty looks."

Rei felt rage and hatred welling up in her. "You _will_ be expelled from her!" she snarled, punching Yumi again and again, but on the third try Yumi caught her fist, pulling down and drawing the unprepared Rei into a vicious headbutt. Such was the force of the three goddesses that Yumi pounded in Rei's visor, digging the scrunched metal into its owner's face. Rei screeched in agony as she felt pain twofold, from Yumi's physical force and her destroyed helm. She felt her grip loosen, and at that moment, she felt herself thrown off Yumi, and before she could recover, Yumi was kicking her deliberately and mercilessly in the stomach and spleen, smashing her boot again and again into her dented armour and flesh. Sachiko and the remaining knights thrust their swords at Yumi, but she waved her hand at them dismissively, cosmic fire incinerating the blades and eating into the flesh of the ladies. They screamed and sunk to their knees, burned alive, unable to extinguish the supernatural flames while Yumi continued to kick and stomp on Rei's head. Rei had curled into a ball, her internal organs ruptured by the power of the Rose saints, reduced to protecting herself with broken arms and tucked knees. Yumi glanced back at Sachiko, who had dropped her ruined blade and drawn her dagger.

"You will regret hurting her, prime Roses," snapped Sachiko.

Yumi loomed over the limp Yellow Rose's bouton and tore off her ruined helm, basking in the sight of Rei's bleeding countenance, mushed lips, and blackened eyes. She clasped a clump of Rei's short hair, dragging her body along the bloody grass. "Come at me, little girl!" shrieked Saint Chinensis's voice.

Sachiko sprinted forward, and she feinted twice before weaving her dagger past Yumi and aiming directly for her left ribcage -

Yumi roared and caught Sachiko's wrist, chortling as she watched the Red Baroness's eyes widen in shock and fear. Yumi's hand gave a hard squeeze, and Sachiko felt her bones creaking and straining under the pressure. So great was the pain that she felt her fingers loosen on her dagger - and as she stared into Yumi's hateful, triumphant face, those starlit eyes were suddenly overtaken by the sight of Yumi's hard fist shooting at her. A mighty _crunch_, and Sachiko almost lost consciousness from the broken jaw. She could see droplets of red everywhere, and her world was flashing into darkness. She felt her feet lose their way, and she tumbled to the ground, caught only by Yumi's rough hand. The dying petite soeur strode past the littered battlefield of burning female corpses, cackling wildly while she dragged Sachiko's bloodstained mantle and Rei's battered body past bodies of knights. "More! More blood and sundered flesh! More fruits of battle!" cried the goddesses in her.

Sachiko moaned in despair through her crushed lip, nose broken and mouth bloodied. Rei uttered nothing, having fainted long ago.

Yumi's insane, rolling eyes paused ever so briefly as she caught sight of a form running over to stop her. "So it's you. It all comes down to you, you who have come to save this rotting body. You, the instigator of this bloody war on this ravaged continent. Welcome, Mister President!" chortled the three divinities inside Yumi, as the leader of the Hanaderian Republic stood blocking her way.

* * *

Fukuzawa Yuki had pushed his way to the front of his uniformed soldiers in grey, who did their best to look brave. "Fire and hold your ground!" he cried, similarly decked in a grey outfit with medals pinned to his left breast pocket. "Don't be afraid. Now that the knights have been routed, our own mission lies before us - exorcise those demons and bring Yumi home!"

Yumi scowled, releasing Sachiko and Rei. Their helpless bodies flopped onto the ground.

"Cannons!" bellowed a regiment leader, and the powerful artillery began to groan into position, each manned by four men. The sergeants issued their orders, and four divisions of men fired their muskets together, enveloping the smirking Yumi in a hail of pellets and smoke. A further five cannonballs slammed directly into Yumi - or, as it was, Yumi's wall of flesh. Yuki covered his mouth as his fellow soldiers retched. For each cannonball, Yumi had summoned a corpse from the ground to block its way. And so the bleeding carcasses fell back to the grass, their bodies desecrated further by the hissing, smoking projectiles. As the regiments busied themselves with rearming, Yuki glimpsed an arrow of seasick green light explode from Yumi's outstretched finger. He dived out of the way, but his men were too late. The divine radiance tore into their bodies, ripping apart the muskets, cutting into the cannons and forcing their men-at-arms to flee. The hungry light was relentless, piercing into the Hanaderians' chests or slicing off their limbs as Yuki's famed, disciplined military collapsed in chaos and petrified bawling around him. Needless to say, the phalanxes of musketeers had long since been broken, its remnants running away mindlessly like chickens from the arrows of light.

The president swept back his coat, glaring at his sister. "Damn you, evil spirits. You're turning her into a Draugur, a hollow fleshly vessel for yourselves," said Yuki. "A Draugur to feast on your own subjects. Typical of the old tyrants and queens, to feed on their own people. But this time, you're using my sister, a girl of purest heart and absent guile."

Yumi smiled through bleeding gums. "Clever boy," came Saint Foetida's voice.

Silence interrupted sister and brother, until the latter spoke again. "I'm going to exorcise you three from my sister's mind."

Yumi spat in scornful mirth. "You can chase away ghosts. You can't erase the consciousnesses of gods!" shrieked Saint Chinensis.

Yuki drew his cutlass from his sheath, a buccaneering blade with a mysterious hilt that seemed to shimmer with rippling light. "Try me, Rose saints," he cried, and a crackling screech, like an eagle's cry, emitted from the sword. "An eye for an eye!" A straight sunbeam shot into Yumi, and the screaming girl was thrown back several paces, rolling along the grassy knoll, past several dead knights and musketeers. "A blade of engineering genius, made to reflect light. A Renaissance technology to duplicate divinity, a science of God." Yuki's hands crossed, repositioning his blade's mirror. He glared at Yumi, who was struggling back up, her green robes burned through and her flesh hissing from the fierce roasting. "I am going to drag you three out, kicking and screaming if need be. Yumi's soul is being poisoned by you wraiths. I'm not going to let you eat her."

"But we've already eaten so much!" laughed Saint Gigantea from Yumi's mouth, blood and black spit hurling from the back of her throat. "You might as well surrender. Surrender, and we'll let you come and embrace her!"

Yumi blinked in shock as Yumi sprinted at her with an almost possessed speed. He thrust forth his sword, and even though Yumi managed to evade the blade, a new burst of sun-dappled radiance shot from the sword's hilt, scorching Yumi's face and burning away at her skin. The distracted Draugur screeched, face sizzling and shoulder spurting blood as Yuki coolly twisted his sword and laced a gash across Yumi's torso. "Come back, my sister!" screamed Yuki, swinging again. "I'm family!" The earth rumbled, quaked, and cracked as brother and sister tussled against each other, Yuki's blade of mirror-light reflecting another ray of sun and directing it at Yumi's chest. Eyes wide, the Draugur shrieked as the white-hot radiance soaked into her skin, burning the very consciousness of the triune Roses housed within. Now it was her torso that seemed to sizzle, and any more could possibly rid the Rose saints of their mortal vehicle.

"Never," bellowed the swooning Yumi in an unearthly accent, "not while we need her for this battle to end all life." And her arm shot out, too quick for Yuki to dodge. Lifting the choking boy off the ground, the Draugur cackled, watching Yuki's popping eyes. "These ancient isles, their lordly castles, and green hills belong to us. You and your men don't belong here. What can you possibly do to wrench them away from us?"

Heart pounding uncomfortably fast, Yuki felt his booted feet leaving the ground, his legs flailing. His neck felt cramped and he couldn't breathe. He gasped and flailed for air, eyes bulging slightly. Yumi smiled, green starlight fizzling from her pupilless eyes. "Well? Tell me, boy."

Yuki forced out a response. "You can... have... all... castles. Not... care. I want... Yumi..."

Yumi snarled angrily. "You still cry out her name. Is one life so precious?" asked Saint Foetida.

"Perhaps he is not incorrect. We would have sacrificed ourselves for each other, too," came Saint Chinensis's voice.

With that brief internal dialogue, Yumi hurled Yuki away. The leader of the Hanaderians shut his eyes tight and braced for impact, but he felt two strong arms catching him amidst a broad chest.

He looked up into a pair of handsome, calm eyes.

"Are you alright, President?" asked black-cloaked Chancellor Kashiwagi, cradling his leader carefully.

"Fine, Chancellor," grunted Yuki, politely moving Kashiwagi's hand off his chest. He gingerly disentangled himself from his subordinate and mentor. "If you please, we have three goddesses to topple."

"Remember everything I taught you before I resigned," advised Kashiwagi, staring at the swirling, churning eddy of starlight enveloping Yumi. It was his turn to draw his cutlass. "I knew you would be a good successor to my office. Or, failing everything, we could simply continue throwing everything we have at her. We have little choice against deities, yes?"

Yuki grunted again. "Fine."

Yumi was about to mount a fresh assault against the beleaguered president when she glanced up behind her, her face twisting in surprise as a massive shadow descended upon her. The World Serpent, Goronta, hurtled down with the force of a hundred longships, and the trinity of deities screamed from within Yumi, directing the latter to leap away from the cat's paws. Grass and dirt was hurled up as reinforcements leaped down from the purring cat's back. Kashiwagi smiled as he looked at the dour faces of the three Roses, and their acolytes, Toudou Shimako and Shimazu Yoshino.

"You!" cried Yuki.

"The Houses of Chinensis, Foetida, and Gigantea, along with your Hanaderian Republic. For now, we share the goal of eradicating the prime Roses." Youko, Eriko, and Sei drew her swords, and this time, not even Sei was smiling. "We will ask questions and look for answers later. Right now, I only want to fight off Yumi-chan and buy us some time to chase out the goddesses."

Her head covered by a wolf's pelt, Shimako lifted her wolfhead-battleaxes, crossing them high in the air, and Yoshino lifted her one-handed mace, glaring at Yumi. Yumi was obliged to return the disdain, her silken gaze expressing as much scorn for these new mortal women as the prime Roses had felt for Sachiko and Rei...

But before they could mount any manner of attack, a Chinensis blade had plunged through Yumi's body, past her brown hair, and worked its way through her beating heart, spearing through her left lung and emerging through the fat of her breast.

For a moment, shocked silence from all parties reigned.

The Roses stared at the trembling Yumi and her successful attacker sadly. "No," murmured a recovering Rei, struggling up and sinking into Yoshino's concerned arms. "She never wanted this. But it must be done... mustn't it?" Yumi's twisted face was contorted in pain and rage as black gore sprayed from her ruined chest. Her hands were raised in agony, twisted like the gnarled branches of a dead tree.

"Assault us, but how many times have we told you? You are merely tearing at the body of your precious soeur, she who is dying the slowest, most agonizing death possible!" barked Saint Chinensis.

"Sachiko-san!" screamed Yuki. His mind had blanked at the sight of the sword inside his sister's body. He didn't know what to think anymore. "What are you doing? _Yumi_!"

The Red Baroness could taste her own salty tears as she gripped her sword tighter. She pressed her head against Yumi's bloodstained back. She looked into Yumi's eyes, who had turned around, tears of blood slipping down her cheeks. "I don't know if you can hear me, my Yumi. But I will kill you if I can rob them of your fleshly castle. I won't let them tear your soul asunder. Yumi, you loved me and gave me life. I, Baroness of Chinensis, love you too, so I will give you death.

"Would our fates have been different, somewhere less cold and cruel..."

Weeping, Rosa Chinensis en bouton snarled, pushing and twisting the blade further into her petite soeur's bleeding chest. "Prime Roses! Out of body. Out of sight. Out of mind! _Get out of my Yumi_!"

* * *

**NEXT ACT: MEN AND WOMEN UNITED AGAINST AN APOCALYPTIC DRAUGUR.**


	8. Echoes of the Dying Aesir

**- WARS OF THE ROSES -**

* * *

Hi everyone ^.^ Thanks for checking out this new chapter of Wars of the Roses, an alternative vision and universe of Marimite. In this much harsher, colder, more brutal world of aristocrats and axes, wolves and warriors, knights and knaves, the three long-divided households of Chinensis, Foetida, and Gigantea united to first fight off the worst of the Hanadera Republic's colonialist invasion. But the foreign onslaught was to become something much more terrifying when the Lillian loyalists discovered that an ancient prophecy had realized itself in Yumi, soeur of Chinensis baroness Sachiko.

With a temporary truce struck between Hanadera and Lillian, Sachiko lured her own soeur into an ambush that spared no resources from the four allied factions. The pieces are in position, and the last game has begun as the goddesses manifest their prophesied return through Yumi. Lillian's three noble houses must gather all they can to muster a final stand against the the prime Roses' unstoppable force of divinity.

This is the eighth act of a Nordic fantasy vision of Marimite. I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

**- Act 8- **

**- Echoes of the Dying Aesir -**

* * *

_Three moon-cycles ago, Chinensis Palace_

It had been many ages since the three Houses of Lillian sat at one table as the "Lily Council". In the ancient days of lore, while the Rose saints were still hunting down the remnants of the primeval demons, meetings between the three noble houses would take place around campfires or yurts, without much pomp or prestige. By the time the office of the High Queen was established, the Lily Council began to be held in the Royal Palace, in neutral ground beyond the heartlands of the green hills of the Red House, or the plains of Foetida, or the tundras and wastelands of Gigantea. Once more, in the age of the reign of High Queen Shiori, they convened once more. This table was again humble, small, and round, stripped of all pomp and finery. Even the room was sparse, its only window draped modestly with a single red curtain that bespoke of the castle's Chinensis allegiance. Rosa Chinensis chaired the once-in-an-epoch but understated meeting, her brow furrowed as she stared at her two peers. Their troubled faces were illuminated by the single candle burning silently at the centre of the table, melting noiselessly like the heart of a woman in love.

"She wouldn't say anything. She's hiding something." Youko glanced at Sei. "Yumi-chan has been behaving strangely, Sachiko even more so. I had spies observe Yumi-chan when Sachiko wasn't in a position to notice."

"Rei and Yoshino-chan confessed her misgivings to me too," agreed Rosa Foetida, scowling. "It was as if Yumi wasn't herself - not even a mad witch would talk to herself as if there were three people lurking within her."

"It is almost like a trinity. Don't you think?" said Sei softly, elbows pressing on the table, chin resting on relaxed hands. "A triune chorus of insane divinity, far more terrifying than any musket the Hanadera colonialists could throw at us."

"The ancient prophecies that Yuki-kun and the Hanaderians came for," noted Eriko grimly. "That's what you're alluding to, isn't it?"

Sei pursed her lips, her silence indicating her agreement. "I'll talk to Her Majesty about it. As we all know, this is not a mere foreign invasion we must fight. I would wager that our ancestral spirits are far more formidable foes than men with gunpowder. This is a battlefront against goddesses of war, and we can't let their very natural lust for battle swallow Lillian in Ragnarok's fires."

Youko looked at Sei in surprise. "But to approach Her Majesty means you've no more hesitation. Are you sure your clarity is so... unqualified?"

"To be honest, no. But you can certainly return to Sachiko and question her very sanity," said Sei softly. "Deny the divine hate that she glimpsed in Yumi-chan's eyes as she was throttled on her own bed."

"Easy, White Rose," said Youko, grimacing. "I was only asking."

"It was you who told us of Sachiko's plight," replied Sei, looking somewhat impatient, "and I'm inclined to be moved by her distress. I know you are too... but time is short. Something is wrong with Yumi, everyone knows that."

Youko pursed her lips. "And I agree, but we cannot make war against someone in our own house - my House of Chinensis - without the Great Seal of Her Majesty. An unprecedented act demands an unprecedented declaration of permission from the High Queen."

"And that's what I'm going to seek out," concluded Sei. "I hope Her Majesty's consent to kill one of our own will set your hearts at ease."

Eriko nodded. "It is you and Youko who have emotional attachments to Yumi-chan. So you have my agreement to proceed."

"How goes the import of the new weapons?" asked Sei.

"Good. Rei is a quick learner with Hanaderian firearms. Our dragoons will be as thoroughly trained as any of those Hanaderian musketeers. Combined with our knights, our reformed military will win every front this war opens to us." Eriko rose from the table, flicking back her hair and adjusting her noble's brooch, which held her golden mantle together. "I'm going to bed. You have a spare chamber for guests, surely, Youko?"

Sei grinned, reaching out putting a hand on Youko's shoulder. "Rosa Chinensis won't be getting any sleep tonight. As our hostilities have dissolved, we're not holding back."

Youko rolled her eyes, and Eriko sniffed elegantly. "I can't do anything about that, White Rose. Don't be too loud. I want to sleep."

Sei laughed as her Yellow counterpart turned her heel and made for the hallway. Rosa Foetida had barely closed the door when Youko positively pounced on Sei, pushing her against her chair and kissing her deeply. Sei could only glimpse the cold stone wall before she was subsumed in Youko's loving eyes, submerged in the wet adoration of her mouth.

"Finally, finally, we are free," whispered the Red Rose, releasing Rosa Gigantea only to breathe briefly. Sei could barely get a word in edgewise as Youko began tearing at her armour, stripping her, ripping off her silk and linen. "It is our shared triumph, Sei. The unity of not only our houses in the face of Hanadera, but against these prime Roses."

"You don't sound worried at all." Sei felt Youko's lips ravishing hers roughly, and she returned the affection aggressively, clutching at her Red counterpart's waist: if Sachiko sought comfort in Yumi and Youko, Youko sought comfort from her nemesis, a nemesis she wanted inside her.

"Let's see how the Norns decide our fate against the Rose saints. I am effectively asking Her Majesty permission to rebel against our kingdom's founders. Until then, I shall bask in this newfound liberty with you."

The panting, sobbing women would soon lose themselves in each other's lust and affection. Their daggers would pierce into each other, their hearts and flesh drowning in pain and pleasure.

* * *

The moon shone brilliantly above the forest. Pressing her green hood around her head so as to protect her identity, Sei spurred her horse on through the gnarled woodlands, branches hanging over the duo like hungry hands. "Hurry," she whispered to the steed, and the stallion did his best do so without crashing into the ominous dead trees around them. "This is important."

Her steed galloped on, hooves kicking up a string of crinkled leaves and dirt on the forest ground. Owls hooted quietly around her, and the clanging of her stirrup and the stallion himself were the only sounds ringing loudly in her ears. She needed to go to Shiori's side.

She was bearing witness to a revolution in Lillian - a revolution in war, in politics, in the three houses, in the entire Kingdom's self-understanding. The Rosa saints were here on earth. She needed Shiori to be part of it.

Time flew like a deadly arrow in haste. The trees now opened into a large clearing, beyond which lay a wide moat. The infinitely tall spires of Lillian Palace loomed over her, almost blotting out the night sky and blocking the moon's beams. The massive drawbridge began to creak, before hurtling down from the castle's white walls and slamming violently at her neighing horse's hooves. Sei let out a cry, and her horse ran across the drawbridge, into the vast courtyard and nearing two guards.

"Halt!" cried one of the women, raising a steel-encased hand. "State your name and office! Why have you come here so late in the witching hours?"

"I am the White Rose," declared Sei, throwing back her hood and glaring down at the shocked guards. "I must see Her Majesty!"

"But Your Highness, Her Majesty is surely asleep and unprepared for an audience," sputtered the soldier.

"Wait. Let me talk to her," came a lilting, calm voice. "Perhaps I can let her in without any fuss to you."

Sei turned her head. Stepping out from the shadows near the fortress wall was another woman in a grey, hooded cloak. "I expected you to come," she said, lifting up her hood and revealing feline eyes and short black hair. "Welcome to the centre of the Lillian polity, the body and bread of our civilisation."

Sei smiled down from her snorting horse. "Shizuka. Royal Bard. It's an honour. Is Her Majesty in the chapel?"

"At this time of night?" asked Shizuka. She smiled at Sei. "Her body is weak, you know that. She must rest."

"It's urgent. Please, Shizuka."

Shizuka smiled, looking down at the ground.

"Just this once, or Her Majesty will be displeased with me again."

* * *

On the highest floor of the Royal Palace, Sei kneeled before the cloaked Royal Guards, who had crossed their spears before the door to the Queen's bedroom. They spoke together sonorously. Even the Roses had to kneel before the Queen's protectors, for they were not individuals, but extensions of her limbs, tongue, and eyes. "For what reason have you come?" they asked, but it was a mere ritual formality, for they would never allow anyone to come so close to the imperial bedchambers without having known her reasons long ago.

"Your Majesty, the White Rose begs for your audience," declared Rosa Gigantea.

The Royal Guards remained silent, for their owner hadn't asked them to give an answer. They were not to deliberate on anything, but act on whatever the High Queen decided.

"Open the door," came Shiori's quiet voice at last.

The guardswomen obeyed, uncrossing their spears, and the humble wooden door quietly creaked open. Sei rose from her genuflection and slowly, carefully passed the Royal Guards and walked into the sparse, modest room. Its only indication of prestige was the purple curtain, which bore the coat of arms of the incumbent High Queen: a hooded Virgin, with thorned vines entwined around her bleeding neck.

Grim indeed, Sei thought wryly to herself. _Far worse than any of our Houses' heraldric aesthetics_.

She was on her bed, a humble, single bed that didn't betray her rank as the supreme, reigning monarch of Lillian. She smiled blearily at the approaching White Rose, utterly vulnerable and exposed, a young woman who was completely at her visitor's mercy. It made Sei's heart ache, that two years ago, their illicit courtship in the royal circles had had to be severed after Sei's ascension to the throne of Gigantea... and Shiori's to the throne of the realm.

It was a tragedy, true, but not quite as devastating as it could have been. At least they could still see each other, albeit as liege and humble servant.

Shiori's true, formal title was extended and extravagant: _Her Majesty High Queen Kubo Shiori of the Kingdom of Lillian and its dominions, Queen of the Realm, Empress of the Isles and the Stately Banners of Chinensis, Foetida, and Gigantea, Defender of Our Faith in the Virgin Mary and the Rose Saints_. But typically, all Sei spoke now was her name, and to have Sei utter her first name helped Shiori feel warmer within than any royal accolade.

"Shiori."

"Is that you, Sei-sama?" cooed the High Queen after a few moments of rubbing her eyes.

"Shiori," repeated the White Rose, giving a short bow. "You are the High Queen. Why do you still address me as a senior?"

Shiori stretched her sleepy limbs, purring in comfort as she savoured Sei's loving, protective presence. "We are sorry. It is a force of habit."

The White Rose slowly and gingerly walked over, noticing that Shiori was still addressing her in the royal plural. "I need to ask you for something. Urgently."

"Anything We can give," murmured Shiori, beckoning Sei closer, "We would gladly give to you, Sei-sama. We still love you. We don't want you to fall in battle."

"I won't," declared Sei, kneeling by Shiori's bedside and clasping the hand of the woman whose flesh was the body politic of the realm. They stared into each other's eyes. "But I need you to give Royal Assent. I moved to strike a truce with Hanadera, and we three Roses moved to unite under the High Queen's banner. But I need you to give Royal Assent to a battle we must fight, a battle of sacrilege and blasphemy."

"Royal Assent? We've been unable to use that since my reign began," whispered Shiori. "None of you Roses could agree to anything in the past. How the tide has turned against Our enemies' favour. But We can at last ask you..." She pressed Sei's hand against her lips, closing her eyes. "Who shall We condemn? Who shall We consent for you to ruin?"

Sei closed her eyes too, taking a deep breath. "We seek to topple the very women who founded our great kingdom, who unified our island and continent into the great realm of Lillian, of the Virgin Mary. Saint Chinensis, Saint Foetida, and Saint Gigantea - they have returned to Lillian, as the enemies of our generation. They have made explicit their desire to begin anew, sweeping us all away in a conflagration for their own designs. We have no choice but to resist them if we wish to maintain our traditions, our civilisation. We need to... defeat our own makers."

Sei opened her eyes, expecting a horrified expression on Shiori's pious face. To her shock, the High Queen never looked more serene. "Now that you speak with a unified voice against a prophesied enemy, in the name of protecting yourselves, our sisters, and me, how can I not give full Royal Assent?" she said, a single tear making its way out of the corner of her eye. She had given up on the royal protocol. "I never dared to dream I would be the High Queen who would oversee the reunification of the three houses. And now... now... you rally yourselves against Ragnarok itself!" Sei felt Shiori clasping her hands tighter. "So be it, Sei-sama. Do what you will, I would follow you into the furnace of Muspelheim if you wished me to. Sally forth and meet our former masters head-on. I will be waiting to welcome you and your victorious soeurs."

"We must kill one of our own soeurs to save the realm. To save our isles, we must murder the goddesses that gave birth to it," said Sei flatly, as if not daring to believe Shiori would be so unshaken.

"It is as you say," whispered Shiori whimsically. Sei looked even more shocked, and the High Queen began to titter quietly. "You once threw me into doubt about everything. About myself, and about my devotion to the Virgin. This will be one of those few occasions that I follow you unquestioningly. If you feel what you are about to do is necessary for the preservation of everything we treasure, then I will follow you into the depths of Hel.

"Valhalla awaits us all, my love. An honourable death comes through battle. So let us fight that battle, and take my hand as you die so my crow-pecked corpse may rot with yours."

Sei bowed her head and closed her eyes, humbled. She carefully raised Shiori's hand to her lips and kissed a snow-white, moonlight-dappled knuckle reverently.

For the first time in a long time, she uttered some very serious words.

"I will repay your trust in me, Your Majesty."

* * *

_This was no longer the past._

_This was the present moment. _

_A moment of heartbreak and bloostained, green robes_.

Her body on the verge of falling apart thanks to the many wounds inflicted on its small, diminutive frame, Yumi spat in rage as Sachiko twisted her sword inside her breast, impaling her heart and effectively killing the girl the Red Baroness had knighted as her soeur. But there was plenty of fight left inside the destroyed form: the goddesses refused to relinquish Yumi, and directed her hands to clasp the tip of Sachiko's sword.

"_Ogasawara Sachiko_," bellowed Saint Foetida from within Yumi. Yumi's large eyes of cosmic turquoise and cerulean glinted malevolently, far from lifeless, and far from defeated. "You would dare expel us from our new home inside this Yumi?"

"Yes," spat the Red Baroness from behind, warm tears streaming down her cheeks. "To give Yumi dignity and rest, I would dare to defy you, Goddesses Three! I love you, Yumi. You won't be damned to slavery by these demons!"

"You will regret that!" howled Saint Chinensis, and as Yumi tightened her grip around Sachiko's sword, the steel of the blade began to melt into molten. Sachiko released her weapon, shouting in pain from her burning hands, while Yumi staggered away, the disintegrating sword oozing down her festering wound and sliding lazily down her bloodstained torso and coat. The assembled soeurs and Hanaderians watched in horror as Yumi heaved, blood pouring from her mouth.

"You will repent of your resistance, I promise," snarled Saint Foetida from within Yumi, turning to face the decimated but unbroken armies surrounding her.

"This was suicide, Saint Gigantea," declared Sei, as the billowing black flags of Hanadera rose in the distance. Reinforcements from Kashiwagi's ships were coming. The Chinensis and Foetida knights had also regrouped, and Rei's surviving dragoons leapt off their steeds, lining up to point their primitive, unwieldy arquebuses at Yumi. "Three hateful spirits trapped inside their own dead vessel, crawling into a hole to die a second death."

Yumi the Draugur (for that was what she was now) glanced at Sei, hissing. "This was what we prophesied, and what drove these Hanaderians to these shores. The destruction of every living on Lillian, to clear a path for the new creation. Hanadera's fire is Surtur - and we are the Aesir! But we will endure, even after this... Fukuzawa Yumi... has rotted for the worms. We are gods. You are all decaying jetsam!"

"Why Yumi, Saint Chinensis?" wailed Sachiko, falling to her knees. "Could you not have made a crueler choice against such an innocent child? I would have surely offered a more ideal body for your incarnation on Midgard..."

"You would have resisted longer than we preferred!" snarled Yumi, icy Nordic fire conjuring itself amidst her heavy breathing. Blistering particles, defying the cool spring climate, began to chill the atmosphere, and the soldiers and knights looked around warily, visibly cold. Sei kept her eyes on Yumi, who continued to taunt Sachiko. "Fukuzawa's body allowed us just enough time to germinate our poison within her brain while we led that boy's destruction to these isles, in preparation for a glorious conflagration," declared the possessed girl, pointing at a furious Yuki. "The sun has set forever on the Kingdom of Lillian. There is a black moon above the northern lights. Eventide swallows the promise of our heirs - "

"What are you all waiting for?" screamed Yuki, waving his hand. "Shut those demons up, for God's sake!"

"No, not yet!" shrieked Rei, but it was too late, as several hundred Hanaderian musketeers unleashed a furious hail of metal at Yumi -

"_Enough_ of you eyesores!" bellowed Saint Gigantea, and the Draugur stomped her boot against the shrivelled, burnt grass, summoning a tremor that was succeeded by a blinding wave of lethal light. Sachiko screamed and threw herself against the ground, and Rei held Yoshino tightly as they closed their eyes frantically. "Get down!" barked Sei as she dove down, and the panicking knights and dragoons obeyed. For the Hanaderians, who were distracted with loading and firing, it was far too late. The hateful light washed over them - over their weapons and eyes - burning into their bodies and hurling them to the ground. Entire formations of tall, strong musketeers and horses were blown apart, scattered like leaves, some instantly dead, others blinded. Yuki was only saved by Kashiwagi's determined charge, crashing into him and throwing him to the ground as the tidal wave of killing, searing fire tore into the screaming Hanaderians and incinerated like a collective, mass funeral pyre. The battlefield was not only stained with rivers of blood, but glimmering eerily with ghostly remnants of Yumi's power.

The Hanaderians were but useful idiots in the Rose saints' hands. They had instigated all-out war on these ancient isles in the name of saving Yuki's treasured sister, but they would not be spared to see Ragnarok's climax. Yumi glanced around her, satisfied. "Your part in our epic poem has ended, Fukuzawa Yuki," she declared, as Yuki and Kashiwagi looked around their annihilated armies in horror. "Kneel in silent obedience and watch our melody end it all."

Unharmed but ruffled, Goronta hissed softly, prowling around the sneering Draugur. Yumi looked up at the cat, then glanced at the three Roses. Youko, Eriko, and Sei watched their original, primeval rulers warily. "Well, you three? Are you ready to embrace the fires of Valhalla? Are you ready to enter the Hall of Heroines as I choke you all to death?" invited Yumi, licking her lips.

"Now!" roared Rosa Foetida en bouton, having recovered slightly. Yoshino burst from her cousin's arms, lifting her deadly mace and charging straight for the Draugur. "Yumi, forgive us!" But Yumi couldn't hear her, too occupied with catching Shimako's axehead in her bleeding hand. Yoshino crashed into Yumi and pushed brutally, screaming ferociously. Boots digging deeper into the soil, Yumi barked in frustrated rage as she grabbed Rei's rosary hanging around Yoshino's neck. A frightened Yoshino yelled in protest, but she could do little as Yumi yanked her forward, opening her growling mouth as sinister starfire began to burn from behind her tonsils, itching to burst out and incinerate Yoshino's head to ashes -

"_Die, little girl_ - "

Shimako rolled past Yoshino and slashed her axe upwards, in an arc that carved a deep gash in Yumi's abdomen. Distracted, the fire within her belly fizzling, Yumi maintained a grip on the struggling Yoshino, pulling her close again and smashing her forehead cruelly against Yoshino's nose, crushing it into a mushy pulp. "Your mace can't match my bones!" she cackled over Yoshino's whimper. She shoved the limp, incapacitated soeur away and swiped at White Princess, who coolly shuffled back and parried another wild strike from the Draugur. Losing patience with Shimako's she-wolf instincts, Yumi gathered herself, before opening her mouth for another starbeam. She began to vomit one into existence, shooting directly for Shimako's widening eyes -

That ethereal eagle's cry again... her spell fizzling uselessly in the face of a shaft of blinding light, Yumi glanced to her side in rage, glaring at Yuki, who had turned his sword at her, directing that Renaissance brilliance to dispel her starfire.

"Yuki," murmured Kashiwagi, looking down at his slumped form.

"Enough," said Yuki wearily, his eyes exhausted. He looked like he wanted to cry, but he would be saved that indignity as his three rivals, the leaders of Lillian's noble empires, walked past him. He glanced up. "This is the extent of my resistance, after all. It was all my science could do in the face of divine evil. I'm ashamed, but I'll have to hand this over to you."

"You're hurting," observed Youko. "Stand aside and rest. We are many. Sei was right: they are but three, trapped in one rotting body, crawling into the ditches to die. With Sachiko's resolve, we'll give her the strength she needs to kill Yumi and expel these goddesses from our world."

Yuki nodded, staring at the ground.

"Roses of Lillian, heirs to the Prime Roses," snarled Rosa Chinensis, drawing her ruby-encrusted sword and glaring at Yumi. Grimacing, Rosa Foetida and Rosa Gigantea followed her lead, and together, they slowly crossed their swords, raising the lightly touching blades high in the sky. Yumi stared at the united Roses darkly as their three blessed weapons glimmered with Valhalla's light.

"_Kill our founding mothers_!"

* * *

Sei was the first to lower her arm and charge at the heroines of primal legend. She lifted her blade and swung it directly at Yumi's head. "Sorry, Yumi-chan!" she called, "For your sake, I'm going to beat them out of you." Yumi ducked and evaded Sei's attack, but staggered back as the three Roses lunged at her as one, a battle-delirious unity, hacking and slashing hatefully at the possessed body that held their nation's founding spirits. Youko cut at Yumi's side, whilst Eriko's sword swung down from above. Yumi blocked Youko's blade with her forearm, which drew a copious torrent of blood, and barely managed to sidestep Eriko's attack. A flurry of three colours, hurling themselves with suicidal, human determination at an invincible, transcendent foe. Even Sachiko was momentarily stunned by the magnificent, inspiring sight of those three rose-decked mantles - billowing vermillion, gold, and pearl majestically forcing Yumi on the back foot. Yumi snarled in exertion, struggling to avoid or parry the swordstrokes raining down on her. Youko's contorted face was particularly fearsome, Eriko's eyes were possessed with a certain madness, and Sei looked slightly ridiculous with her thrilled, adrenaline-saturated expression.

"Knights! Fire arrows! Dragoons, your muskets!" screamed Rosa Foetida, banging her sword repeatedly against Yumi's raised arms. "Ignore us! If you can hurt her, then do so!" The Draugur glanced at the advancing ladies and their horses, their silver armour glimmering. Their faces looked encouraged, if slightly hesitant about attacking while their rulers were in the way.

"You foolish mortal women! Enough!" shrieked Saint Foetida in infernal protest from within Yumi, and the entire battlefield seemed to shiver. Yumi shoved away the Roses and punched a fist into the sky. "To me! Old guardians of these sceptred isles! Your true mistresses have returned - abandon these pretenders to our thrones, and unleash your fierce fires on their forlorn faces!" bellowed the prime Roses.

Another mysterious tremor tore through the sky. And then, a rising cacophony of reptilian howls shook the sundered battlefield. The dragoons looked around, troubled, and the Chinensis knights began muttering amongst themselves. Then, one of them squinted towards the horizon. "What are those?" wondered the warrior.

Shimako's large eyes narrowed. Her sharp nose could smell roasting flesh.

"No... Onee-sama, we are in danger!"

"I thought we already were," answered Sei dryly, advancing against the smirking Yumi.

"No, onee-sama. This... this... is something else."

Yoshino and the Yellow Duchess looked up and further away, and their hearts sunk once they could hear the roars. Shimako was right. In the distance, wings flapped and long horns gleamed. Magnificent teeth bared themselves as gouts of fire rumbled from deep down their stomachs and throats. In between great gestures of their majestic flying limbs, the immortal protectors of Lillian - the friendly, quiet, docile dragons of time immemorial - flapped their vast wings and swooped towards the dismayed Lillian forces and Hanaderians.

"I don't dare to believe it. The treasure-hoarders are moving against us," whispered Sachiko. "They, the dragons of Lillian!" Several men began to scream, but Yuki didn't feel an urge to flee. Yes, there was terror and awe strangling his chest, but his legs didn't even give way. No, he wanted to die standing upright against these ancient protectors. But the truth was that he had never prepared his invasion of Lillian for _this_.

"Fall back, Foetida warriors!" shrieked Rei, and her women took up her cry. Squires propping up the sinking banners of red and yellow flora began to falter, backing away, and the morale of the ladies fell further. "All houses, retreat!_ Here be dragons_."

"How could they betray us like this?" cried a near-broken Sachiko, her flickering hope almost snuffed completely. "They are supposed to be our guardians! They never harmed human beings before... they were supposed to come to us in our time of need."

Yumi cackled, the Rose saints' voices drowned out by the cacophony of draconic howls. "Did you really think they would remain loyal to you after the founders of this Kingdom returned? These ancient beasts, who we rode to rid this world of demons and civilize its forests, plains, and springs? _They were our steeds in life_! They've seen generations of Roses come and go, but they waited for us!" Goronta hissed and her fur rose. She turned to make for the roaring dragons. "Oh no you don't!" shrieked the Draugur suddenly, with a terrifying voice. Suffused with renewed power, Yumi vomited out a stream of starlight at the distracted cat, and the cannon of pure power stabbed through the World Serpent's twitching body.

"Goronta!" screamed Sei, real concern showing on her terrified expression for the first time.

Goronta mewled quietly, a wet, bloody hole sizzling through her back. Her legs buckled from the severe wound. Her furry knees trembled, and the great cat crumpled towards the grass, whimpering as Yumi wiped away the blood from her mouth. "Kneel before me, Goronta... _Jormungand_. You are but a child of a god of mischief. But not even you can devour goddesses!"

The World Serpent was trounced, crippled. And several dragons were already descending to finish her off, hurtling through the clouds and diving straight for the weary Lillian women.

The three incumbent Roses stared up at the burning sky and the hostile dragons grimly.

The world they ruled, and were sworn by oath to the High Queen to protect, was dying before their very eyes.

"We will die, and drag those three spirits with us back into Valhalla," gritted Rosa Chinensis, blinking away hateful, angry, helpless tears.

Rosa Foetida and Rosa Gigantea nodded, clutching their blades in desperate abandon.

Her icy magic contrasting almost poetically with her dragons' flames, Yumi raised a fist, thundering rime crackling and howling around her clenched hand. High above her circled her reptilian servants like vultures, belching fire and preparing to incinerate the Hanaderians and Lily Council's women forever. From within her ruined belly, the prime Roses issued their death sentence. "This Draugur is dying, it is true. And when Yumi's body falls apart, you will see us in the spirit - _fully fattened and feasted on her flesh_!"

* * *

**NEXT ACT: TERROR IS HERE.**

**WILL SACHIKO EVER SEE YUMI AGAIN?**


End file.
